Speaker for Champ.

[Sea Chief]

Can someone tell me what -basically- the differences in sound may be (not technically, ie simply overall volume/ loudness & break-up charcteristics) between the following in a 5w 5F1 amp..

Assuming the same model (for ease of an eg: a Jensen C8, C10, C12).

A) 25w 8" speaker.
B) 50w 8" speaker.
C) 100w 8" speaker.

D) 25w 10" speaker.
E) 50w 10" speaker.
F) 100w 10" speaker.

G) 25w 12" speaker.
H) 50w 12" speaker.
I) 100w 12" speaker.

Thanks, SC.

[Enzo]

Unless you are asking about specific speakers, it is very hard to answer that. Other than to determine if it would work in your amp, the data sheet is not where to look for a speaker.

Power rating is about how much power a speaker can handle without failing. It doesn;t say anything about how it performs or sounds. Now if you want to ask about specific 25w speakers versus specific 100w speakers, then we can talk. But if Jensen makes 12" speakers in those three wattages, they are different speakers. SO there is no way to assign tonal differences to the wattage specifically.

Loudness is about efficiency, not power rating. A 25w speaker with a 100db efficiency rating will be louder than a 50w or 100w speaker with a 94db rating. At a given power level. The difference being that you can't use the 25w speaker to handle the full output of a 100w amp, you will simply burn it up. But up to the limits of the speaker, it would be so.

8, 10, and 12 inch speakers all have their own characteristics. An 8 inch speaker can have a great bite, but will never sound like a 12. A 12" speaker can have a fullness and bottom that a 8" can't make. SO a 2x10 cab versus a 1x12 cab is a valid choice, but not on paper, you need to hear it. STill there is great overlap, and you can;t generalize too far.


Take the smallest, dinkiest little 8" practice amp, and connect it instead to your 4x12 cab, and be amazed at how big the sound becomes.

[Sea Chief]

Ok, so let me try and simplfy my Q. If we were to consider two similar speakers (as jensen seem to make) a 25w c12R and a 100w c12K.

Aside from the fact that I understand, that being the 25w spkr is not very sensible for a 60w tube amp (etc)..

Which one will "break-up" the earliest? (if that is indeed is a relevant question relating to its wattage rating?). If I can determine a basic 'rule of thumb' here relating to the speaker's W, then maybe I can use this info to then choose a speaker that will break up earlier.. therefore insted of my volume being a ferocious 6.5, maybe it being 4.5 I can then just about use the amp (and/or then start to understand how on earth Bloke A recorded his 5e3 in break-up mode at all).

Secondly if we consider two speakers again, these being a 50w 8" and a 50w 12" say a c8r and a c12r. Which one will "break-up" earliest? (again if this a relevant Q at all?)

[Steve Conner]

Breakup of the speaker and breakup of the amp are two separate effects. For a good rock guitar tone, you want a balance of both, but the crunching, distorted tone associated with rock mostly comes from the overdriven amp breaking up.

Choosing an underpowered speaker to make it "break up earlier" won't really work. The tone will get mushier and fartier, but it won't really get quieter. If you choose a really underpowered one, it'll just burn out.

Guitar speakers don't come in low efficiencies either. The same qualities that make the tone acceptable for guitar (mainly a light-ish paper cone) also make the efficiency high. 85dB would be a 6" plastic-coned hi-fi woofer.

[Sea Chief]

Right thats put a spanner in the works- Im back at sq 1 then. I dont understand any of this. So how the heck anyone is meant to choose a speaker for their amp relative to it breaking-up earlier or later then? I have read many, many threads on exactly this 'which spkr' threads, and 1st up for discussion is which "breaks-up" the earlier, or later etc (so Im not going mad or asking irrelevant Qs.. am i?) and thought a general firm rule for a similar speaker was lower W = earlier break-up.

That would get me to a possible answer as to how the heck bloke A recorded his 5e3 distorted (ie if he had a 25w speaker in there, extremely low efficiency too say 90db max). Other than that Im utterly stumped on this.. I want to throw the ***t in the ***ting river!

But why then if I read a typical thread of folks say discussing which speaker to go for the 25w or the 50w version.. what the heck are they discussing?

[bob p]

I went through a lot of frustrating times looking for a speaker that would sound OK with a champ. Eventually I came to the conclusion that there isn't any 8" speaker that will fit into the amp without modification that is worth having. Every 8" speaker that I tried ended up being unsatisfactory because 8" speakers are limited by the fact that they're 8" speakers. IMO you're much better off modding the amp to allow you to shoehorn a 10" speaker in there -- at least in the 10" platform there are some decent choices.

In the big scheme of things, I think your best bet is to just leave the 8" speaker in the amp for quiet playing and practicing, and when you really want to rock out, bypass the combo speaker and use the amp to drive an external cabinet that has a high quality speaker in it. IME the best tone you can get out of a champ comes from using it as a head to drive an external 12" speaker. You'd be amazed by how good a champ can sound driving a 4x12.

[Steve Conner]

I think "Bloke A" just had more tolerance of loud noise than you, and a recording device that could handle it.

[bob p]

I'm going to echo what Steve said about speaker distortion. I think that trying to choose a speaker that breaks up at just the right point is a futile effort, because that endpoint is always going to be changing.

In my experience, speaker distortion of any kind is bad, and it's something that i try to avoid. My preference then, is to find a really high-efficiency speaker with high power handling capability, and to drive the amp hard into a set of speakers that are designed not to break up under the stress. Doing this allows me to isolate the variable of speaker distortion (something that I want to eliminate) fro the variable of amplifier distortion (something I want to control, cultivate, and tweak).

Sometimes it can be really hard to push an amp into clipping without the speaker making an audible contribution; when that happens the logical step is to increase the number of drivers in the speaker array to decrease the amount of difficult to control distortion that ends up coming out of the speaker. IMO that's why a 2x12 that's being pushed hard sounds a lot better than a 1x12 that uses the same speakers, and it's also why a 4x12 ends up sounding better than a 2x12 that's being pushed to it's limits. My personal philosophy is that the best results are obtained through controlling amplifier distortion while eliminating speaker distortion. Doing this allows you to work with variables that you can actually control.

On the other side of the coin, there are people who intentionally seek out speaker distortion. I think that's a dangerous trap to fall into. when you go down that path, you end up buying one of every speaker that's ever been made by Eminence and Celestion, and fussing over minute differences between them. You end up spending an awful lot of money on speaker swapping and in the end all that you've accomplished is a lot of hair splitting in comparing all of the different models that are out there. Of course, the manufacturers really want people to go down this path. It's precisely why Eminence dramatically expanded the number of models in their speaker line by introducing all of those "redcoat" and "patriot" models. They are smart enough to know that if they stuff the market with a zillion different speakers that are only subtly different, there will be people who will buy them just because they want to try everything. choosing to do down that road results in spending an awful lot of money on speakers that don't sound all that different.

Just my two cents, of course. YMMV.

[loudthud]

A couple of points worth mentioning. Most 5F1 amps are setup for 4 ohms. You can find 8 ohm and multi tap OTs however. The 5E3 that bloke A played. Did it have a 12AX7 or 12AY7 as V1? Was the bias set high or low? These are important things to know before you draw any comparisons.

[Sea Chief]

Sorry I realise I made two threads but Im cross-dressing. Bloke A is on t'other thread. I bet he cross-dresses.

Mr.Thud I think you mighthave nailed why my 5e3 amp had huge headroom (seemingly). Although I defo had a 12ax7 in preamp, I have a feeling the bias was way off: I didnt know what bias was tbh back then when I built it. Now I know its important to the tone and break-up point especially.

[Sea Chief]

I'm going to echo what Steve said about speaker distortion. I think that trying to choose a speaker that breaks up at just the right point is a futile effort, because that endpoint is always going to be changing.

In my experience, speaker distortion of any kind is bad, and it's something that i try to avoid. My preference then, is to find a really high-efficiency speaker with high power handling capability, and to drive the amp hard into a set of speakers that are designed not to break up under the stress. Doing this allows me to isolate the variable of speaker distortion (something that I want to eliminate) fro the variable of amplifier distortion (something I want to control, cultivate, and tweak).

Sometimes it can be really hard to push an amp into clipping without the speaker making an audible contribution; when that happens the logical step is to increase the number of drivers in the speaker array to decrease the amount of difficult to control distortion that ends up coming out of the speaker. IMO that's why a 2x12 that's being pushed hard sounds a lot better than a 1x12 that uses the same speakers, and it's also why a 4x12 ends up sounding better than a 2x12 that's being pushed to it's limits. My personal philosophy is that the best results are obtained through controlling amplifier distortion while eliminating speaker distortion. Doing this allows you to work with variables that you can actually control.

On the other side of the coin, there are people who intentionally seek out speaker distortion. I think that's a dangerous trap to fall into. when you go down that path, you end up buying one of every speaker that's ever been made by Eminence and Celestion, and fussing over minute differences between them. You end up spending an awful lot of money on speaker swapping and in the end all that you've accomplished is a lot of hair splitting in comparing all of the different models that are out there. Of course, the manufacturers really want people to go down this path. It's precisely why Eminence dramatically expanded the number of models in their speaker line by introducing all of those "redcoat" and "patriot" models. They are smart enough to know that if they stuff the market with a zillion different speakers that are only subtly different, there will be people who will buy them just because they want to try everything. choosing to do down that road results in spending an awful lot of money on speakers that don't sound all that different.

Just my two cents, of course. YMMV.

Interesting Bob P. Im beginning to think this is why we pay for amps by fender, marshall etc. They have done all the hard work matching speaker to amp, and as a diy'er you're at the mercy of masses of choice and not knowing your ass from your elbow. Im surprised fender dont still have their made especially for' speaker labels I guess to discourage diy tykes like me from ogling their amp innards!