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Can you get 'LOUD' sound from small amps?


ambient

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how do they work?


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You ask a question and some wanker trolls your thread. Got it?

Ignoring the naturually and willfully obtuse a low powered amp can sound just as good as a big one. I use a ZVex Nano for recording sometimes (who would have thought that somebody might a small amp for recording?) and it sounds good as opposed to small, bad, tiny etc.

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To expand on Phil's comment about the efficiency of the speaker... part of a "loud" sound comes from a speaker being unable to handle the amount of power put into it, and the cone deforming. You're not going to get that out of a small amp, unless your speakers are AMAZINGLY inefficient. That said, I suspect that speaker deformation is a relatively small part of sounding "loud".

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To expand on Phil's comment about the efficiency of the speaker... part of a "loud" sound comes from a speaker being unable to handle the amount of power put into it, and the cone deforming. You're not going to get that out of a small amp, unless your speakers are AMAZINGLY inefficient. That said, I suspect that speaker deformation is a relatively small part of sounding "loud".

 

 

I bought a 2x12 6 years ago because it was cheap with the intention of replacing the speakers. I still have the original EVM12L's in it. Sounds great with a 15w head or the Nano. 0.5w amp and 400w speakers shouldnt work but it does (IMHO YMMV)

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I have a 20W Princeton Reverb II with a factory installed optional EVM 12F (same as a 12L). The EV is extremely efficient (~103dB @ 1W / 1m), which means that the amp is capable of generating higher SPL's than it would if it had a less efficient speaker (such as the stock blue label Eminence) in it.

 

True, the speaker doesn't exhibit a lot of "cone cry" or add any appreciable "speaker breakup" to the sound... and that can be a contributing factor to "sounding loud" on a recording... but it's less so than the amp's own distortion characteristics IMO. But it's not too hard to get a speaker that will start to add those characteristics to the sound of a cranked low wattage amp if you want that too. A no-dope Weber Blue Dog is rated at 15W, and you'll definitely start to hear it moaning if you hit it with a cranked 5-10W amp.

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