I realize this is a huge subject, and then when you get into tone it's
even deeper but I'll go ahead and ask.

When it comes to audio/PA speakers, you generally want 1X to 2X of the
power amp watts relative to the rated wattage of the speaker...it's
better to have too much power than not enough.

How does this apply to guitar amps and speakers though?

My guitarist wants to get some new speakers for his Genz-Benz cabinet,
the stock ones are 12" (it's a 2 x 12" cabinet), some sort of nameless
things with square magnets (CTS perhaps?).

We're considering Celestions of course, and perhaps some of the
Emminence offerings.

The rig he has uses a two channel Peavey 50/50 tube amp (it uses
EL84's in each channel's power section), which puts out 50 watts RMS
(I'm not sure of the distortion spec for that rating) per channel.

Ideally we'd like to run each channel into each speaker of the cab;
you can run the cabinet as one channel/mono (8 ohms) or two
channel/stereo (two 16 ohm loads).

The music is rock guitar, lots of loud chords and searing lead kinda
stuff, but also some clean, lower volume stuff...basically the full
range of tones.

I kind of like Vintage 30's, but they can be a bit bright, "reissue"
Greenbacks are another choice he is considering, as well as the other
Celestion models (and then you have the Emminence drivers, which sort
of follow the Celestion power ratings).

Anyway, the Greenbacks are 25 watts I believe, the Vintage 30's are 30
watts, the other Celestions tend to be rated around 75/80 watts.

I've used this same power amp (one channel) to drive a single Vintage
30 (in a 1 x 12" cabinet) with no ill effects, but it wasn't used all
that often and for all that long...also this was at 8 ohms (the amp
offers a selection of impedance settings...4 - 8 - 16).

I guess getting to my question...is it ok to run these speakers with
more watts than they are rated for with a tube power amp in a
distorted guitar setting?

I'd think this may be harder on the speaker than full range, clean
audio through a PA or studio monitor speaker.

On the other hand, a bit of speaker breakup would be a cool
thing....the Peavey itself is a bit clean, we're getting the
dirt/distortion from a modeling preamp that he's using.

Anyway thanks for any advice, I don't know much about guitar speakers
and amps, since I'm not a guitar player.

Analogeezer

in article , Analogeezer at
wrote on 6/24/04 1:29 PM:

I realize this is a huge subject, and then when you get into tone it's
even deeper but I'll go ahead and ask.

When it comes to audio/PA speakers, you generally want 1X to 2X of the
power amp watts relative to the rated wattage of the speaker...it's
better to have too much power than not enough.

and the clear understanding of -WHY- here is absolutlely key.
saving the mic and hi drivers is the reason. NOT saving woofers (in
general).
a clipping amp feeding into a passive crossover sends MASSIVE hi-end energy
(not present in the program material) into the mid/hi sections beyond their
limits. Thus UNDERPOWERING and puching the amp too hard blows mids and
tweets. It can also cause overheaing in woofers but that takes some real
effort. With this overpowered match up of amp-to-speaker you CAN damage
woofs before you damage tweets.

Another issue is pushing the whole system up out of it's linear power
response range where the woof or mid-or-tweet starts mechanically
compressing and starts soundng fatigued and bad.


How does this apply to guitar amps and speakers though?

not at all really since it's a one-way system: you HAVE no tweets to hurt...
and pushing the driver into it's power-compression range is DESIRABLE. The
drivers are MADE to do that in differnt ways and thus sound different.


My guitarist wants to

(snipped here a fine description of thoughts about choosing amongst the
plethora of tone-differeing speakers for a guitarist rig)

Ideally we'd like to run each channel into each speaker of the cab;
you can run the cabinet as one channel/mono (8 ohms) or two
channel/stereo (two 16 ohm loads).
(SNIP)
I've used this same power amp (one channel) to drive a single Vintage
30 (in a 1 x 12" cabinet) with no ill effects, but it wasn't used all
that often and for all that long...also this was at 8 ohms (the amp
offers a selection of impedance settings...4 - 8 - 16).

NOTE TO SELF:
it's IMPORTANT to match the amp impedance to the load. with the voltages,
spikes and power abuse achieved by design in an overdriving guitar head, if
the load isn;t ATCHED to the transformer, that power goes back into the amp
and can cause arcing and all sorst of stuff.


I guess getting to my question...is it ok to run these speakers with
more watts than they are rated for with a tube power amp in a
distorted guitar setting?

Definately Not. you want the speaker to survive. Eminance has real world
ratings, like Electro Voice has alwasys had. I just revived my guitar rig (a
50w Mesa Boogie driving a 2-10" Tremolux cabinet) and bought a pair of the
Eminance Delta Demon 10's rated at 100w each so I KNOW I won't blow em. An
impedance matched 100w Marshall feeding 8 12's (capable of full-power to
thosat speaker load) can use 25 watt drivers with confidence, but it's gets
marginal if you use only one 4-12 cab like that. A Twin into a pair of
those pushed hard probably wont last a set. Although there IS an issue of
managing to achieve some irresistable Killer Tone -only- by driving a 25w
speaker with a 50w head and living with having a crate of extra drivers on
hand. SRV ran a Fender Leslie (Vibratone) with a JBL 10" that was
foot-switched into his Dumble stack (8 12's) in place of 2 of the 12"
speakers in one of the cabinets. His tech had a crate of the things off
stage and replaced that 10 at least once a show.


I'd think this may be harder on the speaker than full range, clean
audio through a PA or studio monitor speaker.

absolutely.


On the other hand, a bit of speaker breakup would be a cool
thing....the Peavey itself is a bit clean, we're getting the
dirt/distortion from a modeling preamp that he's using.

that does change things, but the SPEAKER going into mechanical compression
is almost as important to the tone as whatever waveforms are coming down teh
wire.


Anyway thanks for any advice, I don't know much about guitar speakers
and amps, since I'm not a guitar player.

Forget hifi paradigms here. Both the guitar AMP and guitar SPEAKER are
specifically DESIGNED to be shoved way out of linear clean response and it's
HOW they start to break up, compress and distort is EVERYTHING That makes
them desirable in one way or another.

the amp/speaker interaction and intentional 'abuse' in hifi terms is every
bit as much a part of the player's sound as the instrument itself.

Do yourself an experiment (turned MY head around...)
(wear ear protection)
plug the guitar guy into something like a Fender Blues Junior or a Deluxe...
both little 20w single-12 amps. plug the guitar straight into the amp and
turn the volume to 7 or so (master on the Blues jr on max).
what you hear, with a small amp and speaker being pushed hard well into it's
designed electrical and mechanical power compression, is very different from
anything you can get playing at the same VOLUME level through a 100watt rig
with 4 12's getting the distortion AHEAD of the amp and keeping the amp and
speakers in a very linear, non-stressed zone.

By the time a Marshall or Twin is being pushed hard enough to get there,
it's peeling people's toupee's off at 30 feet.

at any reasonable playing level, small amps sound bigger than big amps.

The 10" speakers in my rig handle a lot of power but they're pretty
inefficient. They're further choked by being in the small closed-back
tremolux cabinet. All That, coupled with the 5881's in the Boogie (not as
much sheer POWER as other versions of the 6L6) means that I can push the
power amp pretty hard, get that compression and early beginnings of grumbly
breakup and it isn't an assault weapon.


--
John I-22
(that's 'I' for Initial...)
Recognising what's NOT worth your time, THAT'S the key.
--

in article , Analogeezer at
wrote on 6/24/04 1:29 PM:

I realize this is a huge subject, and then when you get into tone it's
even deeper but I'll go ahead and ask.

When it comes to audio/PA speakers, you generally want 1X to 2X of the
power amp watts relative to the rated wattage of the speaker...it's
better to have too much power than not enough.

and the clear understanding of -WHY- here is absolutlely key.
saving the mic and hi drivers is the reason. NOT saving woofers (in
general).
a clipping amp feeding into a passive crossover sends MASSIVE hi-end energy
(not present in the program material) into the mid/hi sections beyond their
limits. Thus UNDERPOWERING and puching the amp too hard blows mids and
tweets. It can also cause overheaing in woofers but that takes some real
effort. With this overpowered match up of amp-to-speaker you CAN damage
woofs before you damage tweets.

Another issue is pushing the whole system up out of it's linear power
response range where the woof or mid-or-tweet starts mechanically
compressing and starts soundng fatigued and bad.


How does this apply to guitar amps and speakers though?

not at all really since it's a one-way system: you HAVE no tweets to hurt...
and pushing the driver into it's power-compression range is DESIRABLE. The
drivers are MADE to do that in differnt ways and thus sound different.


My guitarist wants to

(snipped here a fine description of thoughts about choosing amongst the
plethora of tone-differeing speakers for a guitarist rig)

Ideally we'd like to run each channel into each speaker of the cab;
you can run the cabinet as one channel/mono (8 ohms) or two
channel/stereo (two 16 ohm loads).
(SNIP)
I've used this same power amp (one channel) to drive a single Vintage
30 (in a 1 x 12" cabinet) with no ill effects, but it wasn't used all
that often and for all that long...also this was at 8 ohms (the amp
offers a selection of impedance settings...4 - 8 - 16).

NOTE TO SELF:
it's IMPORTANT to match the amp impedance to the load. with the voltages,
spikes and power abuse achieved by design in an overdriving guitar head, if
the load isn;t ATCHED to the transformer, that power goes back into the amp
and can cause arcing and all sorst of stuff.


I guess getting to my question...is it ok to run these speakers with
more watts than they are rated for with a tube power amp in a
distorted guitar setting?

Definately Not. you want the speaker to survive. Eminance has real world
ratings, like Electro Voice has alwasys had. I just revived my guitar rig (a
50w Mesa Boogie driving a 2-10" Tremolux cabinet) and bought a pair of the
Eminance Delta Demon 10's rated at 100w each so I KNOW I won't blow em. An
impedance matched 100w Marshall feeding 8 12's (capable of full-power to
thosat speaker load) can use 25 watt drivers with confidence, but it's gets
marginal if you use only one 4-12 cab like that. A Twin into a pair of
those pushed hard probably wont last a set. Although there IS an issue of
managing to achieve some irresistable Killer Tone -only- by driving a 25w
speaker with a 50w head and living with having a crate of extra drivers on
hand. SRV ran a Fender Leslie (Vibratone) with a JBL 10" that was
foot-switched into his Dumble stack (8 12's) in place of 2 of the 12"
speakers in one of the cabinets. His tech had a crate of the things off
stage and replaced that 10 at least once a show.


I'd think this may be harder on the speaker than full range, clean
audio through a PA or studio monitor speaker.

absolutely.


On the other hand, a bit of speaker breakup would be a cool
thing....the Peavey itself is a bit clean, we're getting the
dirt/distortion from a modeling preamp that he's using.

that does change things, but the SPEAKER going into mechanical compression
is almost as important to the tone as whatever waveforms are coming down teh
wire.


Anyway thanks for any advice, I don't know much about guitar speakers
and amps, since I'm not a guitar player.

Forget hifi paradigms here. Both the guitar AMP and guitar SPEAKER are
specifically DESIGNED to be shoved way out of linear clean response and it's
HOW they start to break up, compress and distort is EVERYTHING That makes
them desirable in one way or another.

the amp/speaker interaction and intentional 'abuse' in hifi terms is every
bit as much a part of the player's sound as the instrument itself.

Do yourself an experiment (turned MY head around...)
(wear ear protection)
plug the guitar guy into something like a Fender Blues Junior or a Deluxe...
both little 20w single-12 amps. plug the guitar straight into the amp and
turn the volume to 7 or so (master on the Blues jr on max).
what you hear, with a small amp and speaker being pushed hard well into it's
designed electrical and mechanical power compression, is very different from
anything you can get playing at the same VOLUME level through a 100watt rig
with 4 12's getting the distortion AHEAD of the amp and keeping the amp and
speakers in a very linear, non-stressed zone.

By the time a Marshall or Twin is being pushed hard enough to get there,
it's peeling people's toupee's off at 30 feet.

at any reasonable playing level, small amps sound bigger than big amps.

The 10" speakers in my rig handle a lot of power but they're pretty
inefficient. They're further choked by being in the small closed-back
tremolux cabinet. All That, coupled with the 5881's in the Boogie (not as
much sheer POWER as other versions of the 6L6) means that I can push the
power amp pretty hard, get that compression and early beginnings of grumbly
breakup and it isn't an assault weapon.


--
John I-22
(that's 'I' for Initial...)
Recognising what's NOT worth your time, THAT'S the key.
--

It depends on how the guy runs it. If he cranks the amp enough to overdrive
the output section, I'd get speakers with twice the power rating of the amp.
If he never pushes it into output distortion and instead gets his dirt from
the preamp or from pedals, about anything should work fine. I'd look into
the Weber line http://www.webervst.com/.


"Analogeezer" wrote in message
om...
I realize this is a huge subject, and then when you get into tone it's
even deeper but I'll go ahead and ask.

When it comes to audio/PA speakers, you generally want 1X to 2X of the
power amp watts relative to the rated wattage of the speaker...it's
better to have too much power than not enough.

How does this apply to guitar amps and speakers though?

My guitarist wants to get some new speakers for his Genz-Benz cabinet,
the stock ones are 12" (it's a 2 x 12" cabinet), some sort of nameless
things with square magnets (CTS perhaps?).

We're considering Celestions of course, and perhaps some of the
Emminence offerings.

The rig he has uses a two channel Peavey 50/50 tube amp (it uses
EL84's in each channel's power section), which puts out 50 watts RMS
(I'm not sure of the distortion spec for that rating) per channel.

Ideally we'd like to run each channel into each speaker of the cab;
you can run the cabinet as one channel/mono (8 ohms) or two
channel/stereo (two 16 ohm loads).

The music is rock guitar, lots of loud chords and searing lead kinda
stuff, but also some clean, lower volume stuff...basically the full
range of tones.

I kind of like Vintage 30's, but they can be a bit bright, "reissue"
Greenbacks are another choice he is considering, as well as the other
Celestion models (and then you have the Emminence drivers, which sort
of follow the Celestion power ratings).

Anyway, the Greenbacks are 25 watts I believe, the Vintage 30's are 30
watts, the other Celestions tend to be rated around 75/80 watts.

I've used this same power amp (one channel) to drive a single Vintage
30 (in a 1 x 12" cabinet) with no ill effects, but it wasn't used all
that often and for all that long...also this was at 8 ohms (the amp
offers a selection of impedance settings...4 - 8 - 16).

I guess getting to my question...is it ok to run these speakers with
more watts than they are rated for with a tube power amp in a
distorted guitar setting?

I'd think this may be harder on the speaker than full range, clean
audio through a PA or studio monitor speaker.

On the other hand, a bit of speaker breakup would be a cool
thing....the Peavey itself is a bit clean, we're getting the
dirt/distortion from a modeling preamp that he's using.

Anyway thanks for any advice, I don't know much about guitar speakers
and amps, since I'm not a guitar player.

Analogeezer

It depends on how the guy runs it. If he cranks the amp enough to overdrive
the output section, I'd get speakers with twice the power rating of the amp.
If he never pushes it into output distortion and instead gets his dirt from
the preamp or from pedals, about anything should work fine. I'd look into
the Weber line http://www.webervst.com/.


"Analogeezer" wrote in message
om...
I realize this is a huge subject, and then when you get into tone it's
even deeper but I'll go ahead and ask.

When it comes to audio/PA speakers, you generally want 1X to 2X of the
power amp watts relative to the rated wattage of the speaker...it's
better to have too much power than not enough.

How does this apply to guitar amps and speakers though?

My guitarist wants to get some new speakers for his Genz-Benz cabinet,
the stock ones are 12" (it's a 2 x 12" cabinet), some sort of nameless
things with square magnets (CTS perhaps?).

We're considering Celestions of course, and perhaps some of the
Emminence offerings.

The rig he has uses a two channel Peavey 50/50 tube amp (it uses
EL84's in each channel's power section), which puts out 50 watts RMS
(I'm not sure of the distortion spec for that rating) per channel.

Ideally we'd like to run each channel into each speaker of the cab;
you can run the cabinet as one channel/mono (8 ohms) or two
channel/stereo (two 16 ohm loads).

The music is rock guitar, lots of loud chords and searing lead kinda
stuff, but also some clean, lower volume stuff...basically the full
range of tones.

I kind of like Vintage 30's, but they can be a bit bright, "reissue"
Greenbacks are another choice he is considering, as well as the other
Celestion models (and then you have the Emminence drivers, which sort
of follow the Celestion power ratings).

Anyway, the Greenbacks are 25 watts I believe, the Vintage 30's are 30
watts, the other Celestions tend to be rated around 75/80 watts.

I've used this same power amp (one channel) to drive a single Vintage
30 (in a 1 x 12" cabinet) with no ill effects, but it wasn't used all
that often and for all that long...also this was at 8 ohms (the amp
offers a selection of impedance settings...4 - 8 - 16).

I guess getting to my question...is it ok to run these speakers with
more watts than they are rated for with a tube power amp in a
distorted guitar setting?

I'd think this may be harder on the speaker than full range, clean
audio through a PA or studio monitor speaker.

On the other hand, a bit of speaker breakup would be a cool
thing....the Peavey itself is a bit clean, we're getting the
dirt/distortion from a modeling preamp that he's using.

Anyway thanks for any advice, I don't know much about guitar speakers
and amps, since I'm not a guitar player.

Analogeezer

The odd thing about guitarists and speakers is that generally
they don't like high fidelity offerings. Cheaply made, poorly
designed speakers give guitarists the sounds they like. Look
at any company's guitar speakers, and compare them to their pro
audio brothers within even the same company; peaky frequency
response, low power handling capability, inadequate power
handling and cooling capability, dinky voice coils, high
percentage of distortion artifacts, etc.
These speakers are chosen precisely because these flaws seem
to complement the electric guitar, especially as they are driven
towards their limits, for guitarists who choose to play with
some edge of distortion. I have used cheap Gorilla speakers,
Eminence, and others that give me the same characteristics as
some Celestions do.
There are those who play cleanly that like a more precise
speaker, and there are some rockers like Steve Morse who use
higher fidelity speakers as well (JBLs in his case, I believe).
For guitar amps, I think the combined rating of the speakers
should at least match the rating of the power amp, unless you
are going for a certain sound and have spares lying about. A
lot depends on the player, and how they set their amp.
Me, I like to play on the edge of distortion, and both of
my cabinets are now loaded with Celestions. I got 'em cheap...
---Michael (of APP)...

The odd thing about guitarists and speakers is that generally
they don't like high fidelity offerings. Cheaply made, poorly
designed speakers give guitarists the sounds they like. Look
at any company's guitar speakers, and compare them to their pro
audio brothers within even the same company; peaky frequency
response, low power handling capability, inadequate power
handling and cooling capability, dinky voice coils, high
percentage of distortion artifacts, etc.
These speakers are chosen precisely because these flaws seem
to complement the electric guitar, especially as they are driven
towards their limits, for guitarists who choose to play with
some edge of distortion. I have used cheap Gorilla speakers,
Eminence, and others that give me the same characteristics as
some Celestions do.
There are those who play cleanly that like a more precise
speaker, and there are some rockers like Steve Morse who use
higher fidelity speakers as well (JBLs in his case, I believe).
For guitar amps, I think the combined rating of the speakers
should at least match the rating of the power amp, unless you
are going for a certain sound and have spares lying about. A
lot depends on the player, and how they set their amp.
Me, I like to play on the edge of distortion, and both of
my cabinets are now loaded with Celestions. I got 'em cheap...
---Michael (of APP)...