Can anything blow a speaker in a tube amp besides overpowering it?

[Gaz]

Juan is the speaker guru here on the board but I can share a recent personal experience with the same speaker.

I purchased a Celestion Creamback-M (65 watts) to evaluate about three weeks ago. Very good sounding speaker, in fact THE best sounding speaker we tried while evaluating speakers to mate with a specific amplifier. Excellent balance across the frequency spectrum, excellent clean tones and some of the best high gain tones I've ever heard ...

... for nearly three minutes. Playing at moderate volume, I literally heard a muted "snap" sound and volume dropped to half and a slight burned smell filled the room. I immediately thought "power tube failure" but a quick check of the amp proved the amp was perfectly healthy. Impedance meter on the speaker revealed a failed speaker coil.

So I had a Creamback-M 65-watter last almost three minutes, which is the only guitar speaker I have ever blown in 45+ years of playing. However, that didn't deter us in the slightest since it sounded so good. We sent back the failed driver and ordered a fresh pair of Creamback-M 65s to load in a 2x12 cabinet for touring (after some rigorous testing in the rehearsal space first)

Like Juan said, some speakers are rated conservatively and some are rated right at their breaking point, and since no parameters are included with the rating (see Juan's posts) then who the hell knows what actual meaningful value the ratings have for the end user? Celestion speakers historically are known to handle well past their nominal power ratings, but with the current lot of Creamback-Ms in the supply chain who knows. It could be a design issue (improved Greenback as per Juan) or there could be some QC issues with this particular lot.

I know from actual test bench measurements that a typical tube amp can and will exceed its rated output power by 25-30% or more on any given Sunday. Examples? We have a Landry LS100G3 here rated at 100 watts that produced a measured 133 watts RMS and an 85-watt Twin Reverb that easily produces 104 watts.

You probably just need "more speaker." Perhaps the Creamback-H may be better suited for your application if you plan to use just two drivers.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with the G12M-65 and opinion on the matter. I will send these in for warranty evaluation. Volume cut with mine before dying (also of course thought it was an amp issue), but no smells.

Also, seen these? They will be available this month purportedly. I may give them a shot!

Classic - G12H-150 Redback - Celestion - Guitar, Bass & Pro Audio Speakers

[Gaz]

Surprisingly (or not, once you analyze it), I found worst speaker killers are not Metalheads but Punks.
Didnīt get it in the beginning, but customer statistics showed that, so ... there must (should) be a reason for it.

I *guess* metalheads, as distorted as they often sound, whether chainsaw sound or down tuned chugga chugga, ARE looking for a certain "tone" , so as soon as they start losing it they stop and back down a little, bur Punks? , they have no idea of tone and keep strumming distorted chords 24/7 ... speakers canīt "breathe" and die.

This is so true, and I am guilty. Lots of intentional feedback and noise between relentless riffing I should have also mention my previous cab had two Eminence EM12's (200W ea. EV12LM clones). I guess I took their wattage for granted. Still was surprised though. First ones I've ever blown.