Ohm setting question

chilipeppermaniac said:
I was also hearing that recent Celestion speakers were Chinese made. Could have a bearing on Blown tendencies too.
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Some are China Made i understand.

I blew up several UK Made variants of the Creambacks and Greenbacks.

They are the AMC Gremlin of speakers.
Jethro Rocker said:
Some things I read state that a say 100 watt guitar speaker is supposed to handle 100 watt amp tube pushed, which of course can output quite a bit more than it's rated output.
Other things state 100 watts RMS is MAX.
Wonder which is true...
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TBTH, it all depends on the EQ and how hard you push them.

I destroyed (2) G12-65's with a 40 watt Marshall DSL40C....literally blew the voice coils off the cones.

Celestion said it wasn’t possible until i sent them a video of the rig in action.

Killed two G12H-75's too. However, the Electro-Harmonix 12VR75 -a chaper speaker - survived the same settings that destroyed the Creambacks and the Greenbacks.

Mitch Pearrow was present for a lot of those rehearsals and he can attest to the percussiveness of my rig. You could feel the crunch from the cabs pushing a sound wave into your nose, almost like a bass on the bottom of a chain saw.

It would literally make your nose run and i was partnered with an all-tube Carvin 100 watt full stack.
 
Inspector #20 said:
TBTH, it all depends on the EQ and how hard you push them
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As per the Scumkback speaker post here: How easy is it to blow a lower wattage speaker?


Speaker ratings are all over the map, quite frankly, and the quality of what's used can change (not here, I've had a set formula for over a 1/2 dozen years since I took over production).

That falls under the "specifications subject to change without notice" disclaimer. I don't believe in that. You build a product to a spec, and you maintain the materials/workmanship to your spec.

That's not what happens elsewhere, though, sorry.

Rule of thumb for speaker survival, you have a 50w amp, you crank it to 6-7, hit an OD pedal, and you'll be near, or past 100w of power handling. I've had clients to do it with their 50w Marshall heads.

Now if you have an amp that's biased cold, dying power tubes, low testing preamp tubes, and weak pickups & pedals, you might be able to get away with running said 100w not up to spec head into a 4x12 100w (or 120w) cab.

But if Marshall figured a 100w head needed 8 25w speakers, and this was before exotic pedal gain boosts were available (usually a wah, flanger, echoplex, and maybe a fuzz like Jimi Hendrix), they knew why you needed 200w of speaker power handling.

I've had too many clients try the 100w head into a 100w cab thing for years. Right after they fry their favorite greenbacks, they ask me for a 65w recone. And Marshall usually sells 65 to 75w speakers in their single 4x12's now. There's a reason they did that, too.

Look, you can roll the dice, be my guest. I'm just telling you it's better to be safe than sorry, unless you have an unlimited output tranny and speaker budget, then do what you want!
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
Robert, refresh my memory or straighten me out. When you were causing all these speaker failures with the DSL 40C, Were you driving a 1x12, 2x2, 4x12, 8x12 or what?
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While I was present it was just the combo amp and whatever speaker he had in it, and Todd the other guitarist with the full stack.. would be trying to keep up and proclaim Robert’s amp to be a monster.
 
Inspector #20 said:
Interesting!!!

Why do you think that is???

When i stopped using Creambacks and Greenbacks, i quit blowing up speakers.

Electro-Harmonix 12VR75 i found to be indestructible.

WGS Reaper 55Hz also was impervious to damage from high volume and high resonance settings. I still have one here somewhere...

Italian-Made Jensen Stealth 80 and Jensen 100 Watt Tornado Neodymium models also never failed.
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Robert, I know you answered on a previous page about how you were using a 1x12, 2x12 and at one point 4x12. Did you blow the Creambacks and Greenbacks in all of these configs even in the 4x12 cab? 25 watt speakers should not blow in a 100 watt cab if one uses a 40 watt amp.
Or were you more likely blowing them in the 1x 12 or 2x12? Because obviously a 25 watt speaker in a 40 watt amp, what am I missing in not expecting it to blow? Or even a 2x12 with a 50 watt cab and 40 watt amp even. I can see 40 watt maxing out a 2x12 if like you say, you are a percussive player and hit things with a TS9 to boot.

I am pretty sure if you had been using G12 75's 16 ohm speakers, they would not have blown. And especially if you had them in a 4 x12 300 watt cab. Or as you said, Celestion Copper back 250's. A 4x12 of these is a 1000 watt cab. I'd bet there is little chance a 40 DSL would blow that cab up.

Also, as an older guitar playing friend once educated me about speakers said, " if I want my guitar speakers to last, don't play a bass through a bass amp and guitar speakers, use a bass cab with bass speakers. "
 
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To me, I can't see how "hype" can be blamed for not good Math. 25 is less than 75 or 250. It would make sense to me not to expect to use at minimum a 2x12 with 75 to 250 watt speakers in them, but if the "sound" of Greenbacks is the desired sound, then one ought to know they will need 1 to 2 4x12 cabs minimum. And to mind the ohms mind the eq etc.
 
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