Attn: Phil Speaker efficiency question

[iamthearm]

this is super important to me because i've been playing super loud music forever and am now in a country/americana/whatever band where i'm playing lower wattage amps. i read the article you posted in the blues jr/princeton thread. my question is how to pair the most efficient speaker? i always matched speakers according to the peak wattage of an amp as opposed to the actual RMS wattage. can you break down the best way for me to get loud with minimal breakup with a single 12" speaker? lets pretend its a deluxe reverb so 22 watts.

[Ryan.]

what's a phil speaker?

 

must have a bald cone?

 

ah cha cha...

[oinkbanana]

you have to look at the sensitivity rating.

the higher that number the louder the speaker will generally be.

 

rating is measured at 1 watt at 1 meter from the speaker.

you have some that read 87db (quiet) vs 103db (that's {censored}ing loud)

so that's the starting point of how loud your speaker is

and as you doubble the wattage (from 1watt) you'll get +3db

 

so a Celestion V30 rated 100db and 60watts handling can end up giving you

1watt = 100db

2 watts = 103db

4 watts = 106db

8 watts = 109db

16watts = 112db

32 watts = 115db

64 watts = 118db (but you're over your 60watt rating so you might blow your speaker)

 

 

 

i'm pretty sure this is correct, but if it's not, someone please school me too.

[Cliff Fiscal]

Eminence Wizard has a sensitivity of 103dB....Tonker 102dB......in general, Eminence will be louder than the Celestion counterparts.

 

So, figure out which Celestion speakers sound good in a Deluxe Reverb, then find the Eminence equivalent.

[spentron]

A 2x12 in a small room driven by a 15 watt tube amp, running at about 28 watts peak, pushed my Radio Shack meter up to around 120 dB, depending on what note etc. I played.

 

If you're really going to consider the efficiency specs, should also look at athe frequency response and see if there is a range that causes the efficiency spec to be different. Physics causes speakers of a particular size and type to have about the same base efficiency. For example a louder speaker may have some peaks in the midrange, but around the bass end might be identical. So if you have a speaker with so much mids it seems to overwhelm the bass, you could get more apparent bass with a lower efficiency rating. But, if you're turning down the bass to put more power into the mids, a speaker with more mids would let you turn down a bit and put more power into the bass. Speakers for high volume levels play this game of going for the loud side of a preferred response contour, hopefully not too far. Vs. hi-fi speakers start with the physics limits of a chosen low frequency limit and then hold back through most of the spectrum to match that, resulting in a wide, flat response but much lower efficiency rating.