Members docjeffrey Posted July 21, 2008 Members Share Posted July 21, 2008 So if speakers that have the same wattage as amps will blow up or not last very long why is Vox coming out with the 15 watt alnico blue? That's just not true. Most speakers, including the Celestion Blue, will handle a lot more than their ratings. The more important concept is efficiency which is measured by running one watt through a speaker and measuring its output in decibels at 1 meter. A Celestion Blue is a highly efficient speaker (100db) so it makes an amp like a Vox AC15 or 30 sound freaky loud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strangedogs Posted July 25, 2008 Members Share Posted July 25, 2008 Actually...The LADY LUCK in the valve junior combo is rated at 15W, and the one in the halfstack at 25W.Celestion makes an alnico blue speaker, rated at 15W. My V3 Valve Junior Combo has an Eminence Rated @ 70 watts... says so in the manual and it is a sweet sounding Combo! Had a V1 head with Bitmo Mods, had a V2 combo with no mods and sold em both when I got this Version 3 - it flat out RAWKS - I don't forsee any mods needed now. It sits on top of a homemade 12" cab with another 10" homemade cab on that and the VJ on the top - all 3 Speakers pumpin' away and sounds GREAT! Really a poor man's STACK and I love this baby with my Toneworks pedal adding effects (Reverb, Chorus, Delay, Rotary, whatever...). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tlbonehead Posted July 25, 2008 Members Share Posted July 25, 2008 I wouldn't turn it up past 5 or 6.The number on the knob means little. Your amp could easily be maxed at that setting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ashasha Posted July 25, 2008 Members Share Posted July 25, 2008 Speaker wattage rating and the sound that the speaker produce (as in musically vs suckically) are two seperate things completely. You don't produce a speaker that sounds a certain way and then change the wattage rating to match the amp. Power handling is a by product of the design for the large part, not the purpose of the design. There are exceptions of course, but if a 70W speaker sounds good matched to a 5W amp AND it is priced right there isn't a real reason for any manufacturer to have another one redesigned just because it has too much power handling capability. Other specs like frequency response, rolloff, sensitivity, output and reliabilty are more important factors than the actual rated power capability. Plus you have to take into account all kinds of crazy {censored} like the fact that tube amps ratings are considered conservative vs SS and that most of those wattage ratings are for clean or even RMS levels. Overdrive a tube amp into distortion and I doubt that it is a 5W reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pope on a Rope Posted July 25, 2008 Members Share Posted July 25, 2008 Ok, so if low wattage amps like the Valve Jr., BlackHeart, and other low wattage amps in that arena are made for early tube break, then why do they have such high wattage speakers? They are touting early tube break up not early speaker break up. The answer was in your question silly. :poke: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AdamCh311 Posted July 27, 2008 Members Share Posted July 27, 2008 One would also think that maybe they considered the fact that people might want to use the cab with a different head. People don't always buy the matching head and cab. Someone might just buy a 50 watt head thinking that they have the VJ cab at home and can get by with it until they have the money for a matching or other cab. Whomever said the Lady Luck in the VJ cab is 15 watts is flat wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members elsupermanny14 Posted July 27, 2008 Author Members Share Posted July 27, 2008 One would also think that maybe they considered the fact that people might want to use the cab with a different head. People don't always buy the matching head and cab. Someone might just buy a 50 watt head thinking that they have the VJ cab at home and can get by with it until they have the money for a matching or other cab.Whomever said the Lady Luck in the VJ cab is 15 watts is flat wrong. Could have sworn the Lady Luck speaker was a 70watter... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AdamCh311 Posted July 28, 2008 Members Share Posted July 28, 2008 Yeah, that's what I was saying. Whomever said the Lady Luck was 15 watts is wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members darkmonohue Posted July 29, 2008 Members Share Posted July 29, 2008 I quote this from the Weber website: "As with all Weber speakers, the higher the power rating, the warmer and smoother the speaker. The 15 watt is aggressive, bright, with a strong midrange crang. At the other end, the 100 watt is warm, smooth, yet is detailed and clear with very good definition." My guess about what's going on is this (and it's just a guess): The lighter the materials, the more responsive the speaker is, and thus the more treble it produces. To handle large amounts of power, everything in the speaker has to be made stiffer and heavier, which tamps down the treble, thus giving a warmer sound. So it's not just power handling--the difference in ratings also reflects a difference in tonal emphasis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pixelchemist Posted July 29, 2008 Members Share Posted July 29, 2008 a drivers power rating is a continuous power rating... meaning a 15W driver can handle a 15W signal continuously without damage generally the driver can handle significantly more than that amount of power in short bursts.. if you were to choose your amp/speaker combo from a purely mathmatical best case scenario type of sitution... your peak power output of you amp should be 2.5x the power rating of the speaker... doing this gives you a decent mount of headroom... using more power you could bottom out the motor of the driver.... using a lower powered amp your more likley to drive the amp into clipping to get it loud enough and again can damage the drivers this time by overheating the voice coils doing this allows between 6 - 8db for peaks in output... when it comes to building guitar amps though this may not result in the best sound... as guitar amp design is not exactly science like other types of amplification... there is alot of "that shouldnt work.. but damn that sounds good" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jrockbridge Posted July 29, 2008 Members Share Posted July 29, 2008 ......The more important concept is efficiency which is measured by running one watt through a speaker and measuring its output in decibels at 1 meter.... +1 I believe this is part of the answer to the elsupermanny14's original question. With a low watt amp, having an efficient speaker is more important than having a low wattage speaker. With a high wattage amp, having a highly efficient speaker is not critical...yet, having a speaker that can handle the high power is important...thus, higher wattage speakers became popular. Some high wattage speakers are more efficient than others. Bottom line...have as many varying cabinets with varying speakers around as you can afford. It's great to mix and match amps and speaker cabs for different sounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members theAntihero Posted July 30, 2008 Members Share Posted July 30, 2008 Another reason i believe,is headroom. I imagine a low wattage speaker thats pushed to the very limit wouldnt sound so great with a lower wattage class A amp, most of which sound pretty raunchy even higher wattage speakers. Also the Lady Luck's are most definatley 70 watts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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