Fane Ascension N30 2025 - Cream and black

Fane Ascension Series N30, Neo magnet 12” speaker designed in the lineage of a Blue or Gold Alnico Brit style speaker. 30 watts, 8 ohms. Briefly mounted in a vintage 12 watt amp that I am now retiring.

From Guitar dot com review:

Celestion’s Blue and Gold are most players’ benchmarks when it comes to alnico speaker tone, and in a direct comparison test, with all the drivers involved having been nicely broken in, the Ascension N30 fares very well indeed.

At 99dB, the Fane is slightly less efficient than the 100dB Celestions (this may well be a good thing depending on your playing circumstances) and there’s a shade less high-frequency brilliance and complexity, but it has similar overall characteristics and plenty of the appealing chime you’d associate with vintage alnico speakers.

As ever, our preferences are very guitar-dependant, but we prefer the Fane to either Celestion in combination with a crisp Telecaster bridge pickup. Switching to a Gretsch or Gibson ES-335, the N30 has a little more low-end punch than either the Gold or Blue, which is most noticeable when playing deep, single-note lines on the E and A strings.
Throwing Fane’s own Ascension A60 alnico speaker into the mix, the N30 has a little less woodiness in the midrange but, again, it’s a close-run thing.