The Celestion definitely sounded way better, I’ve never been very happy with the Katana speaker, always felt it sounded woolly and lacking in detail, thank you fir producing the video, I will be upgrading!

Thank you for your video. I put a Creamback in my Katana 50. I love the sweet mid to high mid tone, without the spiky 3-4K of the original speaker. It doesn't hurt my ears anymore, and I can play it all day long.😄

I am extremely impressed with how good the katana speaker stands up to the much higher priced celestion.

Hey Paul. I really don’t know what a lot of the comments are thinking. Clearly the celestion has a more defined and articulate sound. I don’t want trash out of my speakers. I want purity. Trash comes from effects. Keep it sparkling and let the effects do their job. But woooo. The price is a bit of a deterrent.

For those who have not heard it in the room, the Boss Katana stock speaker sounds good for cleans. It sounds very bad when it comes to anything dirty. It’s grainy, scratchy and lack harmonics.

In the clean channel, the Celestion sounded stereo-like. Beautiful!

I have a Katana Artist Mk2 - it would be interesting to AB the Katana speaker against the Waza in the same cabinet

I much preferred the Katana. The Celestion had more mids but also sounded muddy. I've heard a creamback in a Katana and it sounded beautiful so may just be the redback is not to my liking.

I got a redback and a katana I'm trying to install today and found this , good stuff jh played w the greenback g12h, so I'm glad we made a good decision, cheers!

Wow that's a huge difference, what a great speaker, I have always discounted the redback for recording because it's such a high wattage speaker, I assumed I would have to drive it hard and very loud to get any character out of it, looks like I was wrong!

BOSS Tone studio program , I use the Global EQ . it is good for setting up the overall sound you want .with out swapping speaker. but i would like to see a EQ spectrum analyzer bars of the 2 , to see the diff.

Speaker, "Schmeaker"... I just tune in at this point to try steal Paul's chords!! X

Thank you man 🙏🙏❤️ I prefer Celestion cab

Great video - thanks!

In my Katana Artist MK2 there is a 12 inch Boss WAZA Speaker in there. Sounds Amazing. But don't forget in this example only the speaker is changed without any nessesary frequenz modification (so called: negative Feedback compensation) of the Power Amp. Because every Speaker got his own impedance/freqeunz curve and the Power Amp has to be adjustet so far. Anyway the Celestion Sounds much better and it would sound again much better with correct negative feeback curicut in the Power Amp. This is exactaly that what Boss does to the Power Amp connected to the WAZA Speaker. I Look from an egennering sie to the subject.

That's my next guitar upgrade, was really quite surprised at how different it was as the katana has always sounded great. There's always a bigger fish!😂

That made quite a difference. I can't believe I never thought of changing the speaker, I overlooked this i guess.

as with every katana speaker swap video i've listened to i think the stock speaker still sounds best.

Sounds like something that can be adjusted with EQ. It’s almost like the Katana speaker gave you everything, while the other dropped of some highs and boosted or allowed the mids to come through more. Speaking specifically regarding the distortion demo. Good to know that those who wish to change the speaker can do so.

I’d love to hear an Eminence CV-75 in a Katana for a comparison. The Celestion sounded a lot smoother than the stock and cranked up probably would be far more defined. I couldn’t really tell if it was or not because of the KZfaq compression.

Great video Paul. Definitely more mid-range focus and presence with the celestion. It really seemed to bring the amp to life. However, for practice or noodling about at home, I'd choose the stock speaker. For recording and gigs I'd prefer the Celestion.

Il Katana ha dei puliti fantastici❤

Yep, great difference and the mids are a lot more present in the Red Back. This is exactly why I went with the (MKII) head as I can plug it into my own cab (Marshall 4x12 in my case).

Great video as usual please post the new one about how to swap the speakers as soon as you can. Ciao !

For cleanse I prefer the stock speaker. For overdrive/distortion, I prefer the celestion.

Thanks for the video! For my taste and music I like the Celestion red better. Will consider a swap!

Yes, I changed mine for a Celestion V-Type, great improvment.

I like the Celestion- could hear more of the mid's but also a piano quality seems to poke through. Would love to hear this same demo done with Creambacks....

I think this really depends on what you are going for. The cleans are nice and beneifit from the added mid range with the celestion, but I think I prefer the scooped sound of the katana speaker for the higher gain stuff.

That celestion sounds great in it

The Katana speaker is a pretty decent compromise, but there's no doubting the extra cut from the Redback. I went a different route, adding a switching jack to my 100 MkII, retain the pick up and go base Katana or plug in any 8 ohm cab. I'm using a Friedman 2x12 (Vintage 30s), more mids and the much larger cab adds a sense of scale you'll never get from a small 1x12 combo. Without pre-empting your speaker swap vid, I've found it much easier to remove the amp section (60 second job), rather than fiddle around trying to squeeze the speaker in and fit the securing screws to the baffle. I like easy.

I have the 100 mk2 head. I've tried it with lots of different cabs and bizarrely it sounds really good with a closed back 2x10 with cheapo eminence speakers that I had for a backup bass cab! Marginally better with a 4x12 with creambacks but the portability factor and the size in my front room far outweighs that. Try stuff out, you may save yourself a lot of money. Great vid.

I will say that the stock Katana Speaker did take me a considerable amount of time to dial in it's sweet spot. Out of the box the highs were ridiculously shrill. But once I figured it out I've stuck with it. The waza in the Artist is killer right out of the box and only gets better the more its played.

The feedback did sound more punchy, especially with gain, but I really liked the katana speaker, and I don't think it is worth the extra expense. I can eq the sound to get extra mids anyway with the studio app, or using the knobs on the amp to get the tone I want personally. I don't know how much the speaker you purchased costs, but if it was inexpensive enough, it would be ok for someone who gigged a lot. For me, who mostly plays at home, with the occasional gig for fun or charity, the Katana speaker is more than capable, and is really good considering the price of these killer amps. We live in a great time for gear and guitar players. Back in the mid 70s when I started playing, it was either a fender, or a Gibson, or some horrible copy, and either a Fender or Marshall amp if you wanted to gig. Expensive for a young man that didn't make a lot of money. I had a twin reverb that I bought that took me forever to pay off in layaway. Great vids. Thanks loads. Regards from the midwest USA.

Celestion was noticably louder, exactly like you said about the mids being more scooped with stock speaker. I don't know but probably the celestion overall.. I think the high gain tones were smoother with the celestion, but a tad bit dark which could be easily fixed with a boost of presence or 1k... Another thing to take into consideration is breaking in stock speaker because it does make a difference, smoothing our the choppy upper mids a touch due to cone having More travel in it..

For me I like the Celestion with the cleaner sounds and the Katana speaker for the distorted ones. But honestly while they sound different to me it’s not worth spending the money and doing the work when the katana really does sound very good all around.

I have a Katana Artist and That has specially made speaker for it which is a copy of a celestian green back it sounds great

I thought about swapping the speaker in my Kat 100 1x12. Still haven't and I actually like the stock speaker. Was thinking about adding a speaker out to use as a head with some of the cabs I have though.

I have a mk1 katana 2x12, it does everything i want except cut through in a live band. Has plenty of volume but it's just not doing it with crunch/higher gain stuff. Most reviews/comments I've seen favour the katana speakers but in a live situation they don't do it for me. I have some 80s g1275's I'm gonna throw in for this weekends gig and see how it goes before blowing money on some new celestions. It's certainly lacking that mid range. Oh and I preferred the red back 😀

Great video, Paul! I have always wondered about this. The differences seem mostly in the high gain settings as you point out. I tend to like the stock Katana sound better, but that's probably because I spend so much time with my Katana!! I'd be interested if things sound any different in a mix or what the Katana sounds like with a Creamback.

I think that the original speaker sounded better but then again, I also tried the redback speaker in my MKI artist combo back in 2019 and while it DID allow me to really pump the low end up more for a bigger fatter sound, the top end just never really sounded that great and I had to really crank that speaker to get a decent tone out of it and even then, the factory Waza speaker just had an overall better voice for everything I played (mostly modern heavy rock) compared to the redback. I ended up selling the redback and putting the waza speaker back in and just living with a bit less low end punch. I've considered pulling one of my Scumback speakers from another cab to try out and running the amp at 50w. I also tried the EVM 12L classic and while it was able to easily handle all the low end I could EQ, the upper midrange had this nasally thing going on that I couldn't EQ out.

I like the brightness of the boss speaker, but it could do with a little of the redback mid punch. Not sure I would swap it out based on this. Would probably tweak the eq a bit first. That final clean tone sounded amazing through the redback though!

Interesting! I kind of liked the Katana speakers better. But in isolation the Celestion would still be just as good. I find single speaker combo amplifiers produce more of a mid range kind of sound as opposed to the 4x 12 cabs that have more base and highs and less middy. So, the scooped sound of the Katana speaker seems to be a good compliment to a 1x12 combo. Should compare the Artist speaker (which is modeled on a Greenback) to these also as it is a very different speaker again.

Hi man have u tried the waza speaker ?? How did u like the red back ? Thanks 👍

Try out the waza craft g12w mine came with that in it and the mids are awesome. It's based off the green back

Great video, I've been thinking of doing a speaker swap as well, just didn't have any ideas past a Green back. Did you choose the Red Back for specific reasons as opposed the the Green or Cream or was it just a speaker that you had on hand?

It would be awesome if you could do a proper studio comparison of the Redback against James' Creamback Katana.

While they both do sound different I can't say one sounds better than the other. A decent speaker swap could almost cost as much as a used Katana. Maybe on the next Katana's they can add a few speaker modelling choices to the front panel. A Kat head with a few different cabinets is a compelling possibility too. Interesting video.

Celestion for the cleans, Katana all day for the dirt

I have a 100 katana head I play it through celestial 12 x 2 speakers G 75 t they sound exactly the same as my studio headphones people don’t like them but I think that sounds good into a 2 x 12

The cleans are much improved, the mids post-swap seem too prominent on dirty/crunch tones - or at least in my very subjective opinion. That said, I'm pretty sure that with some judicious EQ the Celestion would be a firm choice, or perhaps a Texas Heat.

looking at your swap katanya speaker you swapped for a redback 1 was looking at the celestion v type but its only 70 watt would i lose volume

Is there a risk you could damage an after market speaker in a solid state amp? So for example if I put a Greenback rated at 20W in a 50 Katana, would that damage it? Even though there's the probability that a 15W valve amp (which in theory the GB will be perfectly safe in) might sound louder than a 50w Katana?

How did you swap the speakers when the Katana speaker terminals are not like the standard connectors on Celestion speakers, they are 5mm and 2mm.

Hello. What is the power of celestion redback? If I have katana 100mk2 I should use 100Watts speaker for better headroom?

Redback sounds a lot like the speaker from the 100, though a little darker... could be good for those wanting to upgrade without buying a whole new amp

I have a Line 6 Catalyst 60w and i want to swap the speaker to a Celestion one. I know the Catalyst have a 4ohm speaker, do you know of any celestion speaker that will work with the Catalyst?

I wonder if the stock speaker was chosen to accommodate the acoustic setting as well as electric sounds - a bit of a “jack of all trades”. I actually play both acoustic and electric through it but would agree that the sound is a compromise and if I were purely playing electric then I’d probably make the swap.

With my screen turned off not knowing what order you did the demo in, I couldn't hear enough of a difference to justify the price of the new speaker.

listening on studio headphones and the difference is dramatic. The Celestion has so much more clarity

I liked the stock speaker better… I’d like to hear the Mk2 with a Neo Creamback

Late to this and the katana, and I'm probably wrong, but aren't people missing a trick by swapping speakers? Boss make the global EQ available to the speaker out only. Enabling a different speaker chatacteristic for different user, environments, volume levels, without altering the amps settings or presets.

whats your settings on the 3rd exp

The Celestion definitely sounded fuller, even over KZfaq. I always assumed there was something special about the Katana speaker that allowed it to be used successfully for acoustic guitars. Any chance of plugging an acoustic in to the Celestion and letting us know whether it still sounds good?

Which reverb did you use for the last example? sounded great.

The Katana speaker sounded more balanced on the dirty stuff for sure... didn't like the G12H Redback at all. That said... I have the Artist with the Wazacraft so I don't really have to worry either way. :-) Very interesting though... thanks for doing that.

Sooo, of all the speakers in Celestion's lineup, what made you choose this speaker to shoot out with the Katana's speaker? Is it because the Katana is a but of a do-it-all amp and you figured that the Redback might retain a bit of that while alao adding a touch of Celestion mojo?

I would love to see a comparison using the Artist.

Really you must break the speakers in. Especially a 100 watt speaker which will probably have more dope on it and also a stiffer acoustic suspension. I always break in very well a speaker before I gig with it. Studio may be a little different but still all speakers sound sweeter with some age. At least 40 hours of good decent volume play time will make a difference. I have the Artist MK 2 with the Greenback style speaker and if anything more dope would get rid of the sometimes that happens ice picky highs. Also limit the high cut on the EQ helps.

Can I replace the stock speakers of boss katana 2x12 with 2 Celestion G12H Redback?

I prefer the Katana Speaker at any category, but that is, of course, a personal preference. I'm not a "sound chaser" either, that want to copy a specific sound, but trying to create sounds that are good for me, maybe a bit similar to the "original" but that's it. I think there are tons of people out there which should switch the speakers to hit a specific tone, and we all know the characteristics of the original Katana speakers. Maybe for them it would pay out. For me, personally, I'll stay at the original Katana and tweak the sound that hit me most \o/

I think that a lot of the tonal difference between the KATANA and NEXTONE is down to a higher quality speaker.This would be a "must have ' for the already great sounding katana!

This reminds me of Peavey VIP3 I had. Switched the original speaker to Celestion Neo and it sounded insanely good for jazz, country and rock with wonderful mid overtones. However, it didn't sound good for acoustic and bass. Likewise, Katana speaker is like a swiss knife. It does all reasonably well, but does not do extremely well in any particular category.

What a difference,I have a boss katana MK2 50 what boss katana is the swop for. Also the speaker you changed it for comes in 8 or 16 ohms,which one was the swop. Great videos 👍

Did it also have an effect on the bass?

Kat for high gain, and redback for cleaner stuff..now im gassing to get an aby pedal and kat 50 with a redack lol

It's very Marshall-esque. prolly cause it's what they used in marshall speakers, very honky and midrangey as well, probably worth upgrading if you want some high gain distorted sounds, not really great for cleans.

I have Boss Katana 50mk2 and I’m thinking of putting a Greenback Wazacraft speaker in it. An expensive speaker, yes. Has anyone done this?

Overall, I preferred the Katana. The Redback sounded a little harsh most of the time, and occasionally a tad "honky." Doesn't mean it isn't a good speaker, just not designed for Katana preamp and amp. Also, when doing back to back comparisons, it helps to keep the interval between the switch shorter, as you did in your first example. More than about 8 seconds, and I've lost the first sound.

My katana speaker has glue on it too.

Does anyone have a good global EQ setting to work with the somewhat shrill high end of the stock speaker?

In the room itself the celestion punches way more than is clear on this video, but the original Katana speaker delivers the most 'produced' sound although it can lack punch in a band environment...

The Katana speaker was too scooped for my tastes. It puts me off ever buying one, if I’ll have to change speakers. (I might prefer to buy a more expensive amp, rather than swap speakers.) However, I wonder how much it could be improved with an EQ pedal.

I like the katana speaker. It sounds modern to me, the Celestion sounds kind of vintage. Maybe the differences are even more notorious in a mix.

Definite difference for sure. The Celestion has a fuller sound with less top end. I have an Artist model with the modeled Greenback. It would be interesting to see where that one fits with these two. As always, an exceedingly well done video, Paul.

katana speaker sounds best to me. The Celestion sounds to me like there is a blanket over the amp

Celestion sounds a smidge spongier?

katana has HI-FI, red only has the mid boost, amp international EQ can duplicate red, but not the reverse.

Great demo Despite! Despite the mid range focus of the redback, the detail was lost in the mids. The stock speaker to me retained more detail throughout.

The celestion has rolled back highs ! And clean mids the Katana speaker has too much highs and hiss. So sounds like celestiom is a good choice

I’m not sure if the katana speaker sucks or is it the whole amp but you don’t seem to get any defined tone of it. Does not sound sound professional but costs only 300

Stock speaker sounds fine. Why bother with the additional cost and effort?

Can you put a 8 ohms 10inch speaker in a katana 50 ?

Anyone try an Altec?

Couldnt you technically just turn up the mids to get the same or similar results?

celestion sounded weak in the high gain setting; katana sounded tighter and louder

Isn't it possible to just tweak the amp EQ & get a simular result ?

Is the red back broken in ?

I 'm not speak very diference🤷. It's better the celestion?

I'm not an expert at all but to me the Celestion sounds quite more similar to a "real" amp, anyway my 50 Mk II doesn't sound bad at all. Even when played by me...