Trying to achieve the perfect tone from a guitar amp can be a headache.
Finding the optimal combination of drive from various pedals on your pedalboard to tuning the gain on your vintage Plexi, only to turn around and realise that your band is looking at you covering their ears because this perfect tone is also blisteringly loud to everyone except you. But what can you do? If you change the loudness of your amp, the tone will be ruined and if you don’t you might not have a band to play with next week. Enter the interesting new offering from Celestion, the Peacekeeper, an attenuating speaker that can tame the “sweet spot” in loudness while leaving the tone and dynamics as is.
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For those uninformed about who Celestion are, they are a loudspeaker manufacturer hailing from the UK who have been in the speaker business for over 100 years. In their history, Celestion has been responsible for crafting speakers for popular amplifiers, including the legendary Vox AC30 and Marshall 4×12 cabs with their “Alnico Blue” and “Greenback” models specifically. Due to their adoption by Marshall and other British amp manufacturers, they dominated the sound of rock and roll in the 70s and continue to be an industry staple today.
With such a rich legacy in shaping the sound of rock and roll, Celestion’s innovation has always been rooted in refining and enhancing amplifier performance. The Peacekeeper follows in this tradition, taking Celestion’s expertise in speaker design and applying it to a modern problem—controlling volume without compromising tone. By leveraging their decades of experience in speaker technology, Celestion has managed to offer a solution that respects the tonal purity guitarists seek while introducing a practical, volume-friendly application.
Peacekeeper 12″ speaker
Breaking down the technical data, the Celestion Peacekeeper is a 12-inch ceramic magnet speaker with a rated impedance of 8 ohms and a sensitivity of 86dB. Compared to the 12” version of their Creamback speaker—a popular ceramic speaker from Celestion—which has a sensitivity of 97dB , that’s 11dB of attenuation. In layman’s terms, this is about half the maximum perceived volume from the Peacekeeper, although when comparing the frequency responses, they’re very close across the spectrum with a slightly smoother top end on the Peacekeeper.
But how does Celestion manage to maintain tonal integrity while taming volume? The answer lies in its innovative dual voice coil design. The dual voice coil speaker design employed by the Peacekeeper is two individual coils. As usual, the first driver drives the cone, but at a lower BL, while the second keeps the first coil consistent for precise low end and maintaining balanced tone, providing more flexibility in how it handles power and sensitivity. In the case of the Peacekeeper, it seems this design works to dissipate energy more efficiently, effectively reducing overall loudness while maintaining the amp’s natural frequency response. This means guitarists can drive their amps into the sweet spot of tube saturation without the excessive volume that usually comes with it, making it an elegant solution for both live and studio applications.
In essence, the Peacekeeper is like an installable pad for your amplifier that doesn’t change the gain staging you’ve worked meticulously for. Due to its standardized size of 12” with a power rating of 50W, it can be swapped into a large variety of amps, making it extremely compatible and relatively easy to swap out in a pinch. Celestion even boasts that the speaker will add ‘zero additional coloration or tonal compromise,’ which is an impressive accomplishment, and the data sheet reflects this claim.
This speaker will be a boon for guitar tone purists and live sound engineers alike, enabling you to make your amplifier sing the way you want it to while reducing the stage sound. This could result in a better overall front-of-house mix for the audience, giving sound engineers greater control over the balance without the guitarist needing to sacrifice their ideal amp sound.
The Peacekeeper also provides a solution for the guitarist who doesn’t enjoy playing through an amp modeler or a headphone amp but wants to shred uninterrupted by annoyed housemates and neighbours. Bedroom players who crave the feel of a real amp but struggle with volume constraints will find this to be a game-changer.
I can also see this speaker being useful in the recording studio to inhibit bleed from the guitar amp into other mics while recording a full band live. Less amp volume bleeding into drum overheads or vocal mics means greater clarity in the mix, making it an invaluable tool for engineers striving for clean, professional recordings.
The Peacekeeper allows for a lot more flexibility and versatility in a guitar player’s arsenal. The max sensitivity of 86dB will still be relatively loud when pure decibels are the only thing you’re after but will also allow you to keep the peace with your bandmates by not deafening them. This balance between maintaining the natural amp tone while reducing overall volume could make it a go-to solution for gigging musicians, home players, and studio professionals alike.
With the Peacekeeper, Celestion continues to prove why they remain at the forefront of speaker innovation. By addressing the challenge of volume control in guitar amps without sacrificing tone, they’ve delivered a product that blends their tonal tradition with modern practicality. Whether on stage, in the studio, or at home, this speaker offers a much-needed solution for guitarists who refuse to compromise on sound. If your goal is a balanced mix with bandmates and good relationships with neighbours, all the while preserving your carefully crafted tone, then Celestion has just provided the perfect solution.
For local Celestion enquiries, visit our friends at ELFA.
