Members blindopher Posted January 30, 2014 Members Share Posted January 30, 2014 Hi,I'm looking to match my 5W amp head (Mod 102 - a DIY handwired 5W single ended class A EL84 amp) with a single 12" speaker to be loaded into an open back cab. The speaker i have in mind is the Weber alnico Blue Dog 12". I've been so far unable to contact Weber as they appear to be severely understaffed in their tech support department and swamped with orders and requests - the hype is surely on for Weber. So i was hoping someone here could advise me as to the wattage of the speaker. The Blue Dog 8 ohm comes in 15-30-50-100 watts. I plan to frequently dime my amp to achieve natural tube overdrive, and roll back on my guitar volume to clean up. WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR IS EARLY BREAKUP - NOT CLEAN HEADROOM. (Early AMP breakup, that is). I also intend in the future to be using a 10 -15 watt head with this same cabinet. So far i've been able to (kind of) scrape some info about speaker needing to be twice or thrice the wattage of the amp. Can this be confirmed? Is there any truth to the speaker distortion factor i often hear about? Please kindly refer to the watt issue involved here - NOT impedance matching. thanx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members r0bo01 Posted January 31, 2014 Members Share Posted January 31, 2014 2x amp rating for spkr wattage has always worked for me. a higher spkr/amp wattage ratio (say, 3x) would give even more insurance, but at the cost of speaker breakup / distortion. so a speaker that would sound ok with your 5 watter (your choice would be 15 watts) would be in danger with your future 10-15 watt head. usually these power ratings are rms (an average) but this doesn't mean the amp doesn't produce peaks that are higher than their avg, pwr. output. and if it does, speaker go zzzzt! (15 watt amp -> 15 watt spkr.).for the 15 watt amp, i wouldn't go lower than a 30 watt spkr. satisfying your 5 watt amp depends on whether you can get what you want only from the amp breaking up (spkr. will reproduce that pristinely). 30 watt spkr. will add no (or very little) distortion to the mix.you may want to look into buying both the 15 & 30 watters, one for now, one for later (prolly not a bad idea, might save u from removing the 30 if u don't like it with your 5 watter...).hope this helps.p.s.-all that said, i use a 15 watt @ 1/2 pwr into a 2-12 cab with 2 celestion g12 70's. but i get my dirt from effects... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kolapsar Posted February 1, 2014 Members Share Posted February 1, 2014 but mismatched impedance is what you want Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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