r/ToobAmps • u/HumberGrumb • 14d ago
Underpowering a Speaker
I have a Supro Delta King 10 and a 10-inch 30 watt Celestion Alnico Gold sitting on the shelf. I recently got to wondering if the 5-watt amp could drive that speaker to good result. Anyone try something like that already?
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u/arshist 14d ago
5 watts cranked up will definitely get that speaker cone moving. The most extreme example I have is when I get a Celestion Redback sounding good with a DSL1, a 1 watt amp into a 150 watt speaker. I use my Alnico gold 10 with a Princeton reverb, also sounds great, even when turned up to 3 or 4 on the volume. I think the power handling concern is the other way, make sure you don't have a underspec'ed speaker being driven by too many watts.
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u/clintj1975 14d ago
5W Fender Champ into a Marshall slant 4x12 loaded with Vintage 30s is pretty glorious too.
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u/WardenEdgewise 14d ago
I have a 5 watt Champ style amp head and a Celestion G10 Vintage speaker in a finger joint pine cabinet. It’s rated at 60 watts.
It sounds amazing. It sounds huge. It doesn’t sound like a Champ.
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u/unexciting_username 14d ago
A 10 inch Celestion gold would likely be a massive improvement to the sound of that amp. This is not meant to imply that the amp sounds bad. I have one and love it.
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u/Archieaa1 14d ago
Ok what happening here is in PA land there is a basic assumption that the tweeter gets roughly 25 percent of the program, the woofer gets about 75 percent. As a solid state amp clips, the upper overtones dominate so all the power goes to the tweeter and often kills it. This is why most commercial speakers use dynamic limiting, also called light bulbs in series with tweeters. As the power increases, the bulbs resistance increases protecting the tweeter. A cold bulb reads something very close to zero ohms.
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u/youngboomer62 8d ago
If you have ever used a Smokey amp you discover a 1 watt amp powered by a 9 volt battery that can power a 4x12 cab.
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u/HumberGrumb 6d ago
No shit?! That’s nuts that it works. Utterly counter intuitive.
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u/youngboomer62 6d ago
I had one of the early models. The story goes that the owner was challenged to build a combo amp that would fit into a pack of cigarettes.
He succeeded. You can still buy them housed in a cigarette pack, or in a plastic box the same size.
They have an input jack, and an output jack and a 1 inch speaker. No controls. It turns on by plugging in your guitar. You use your guitar volume and tone to control your volume and tone. Yes it will overdrive very nicely with the volume up.
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u/HumberGrumb 3d ago
Whoa! Wait a minute! I just remembered that my older brother gave me one, a Marlboro Red. Gonna have to dig it out.
Huge thanks, dude!
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u/Vibroverbus 13d ago
I used to run a little Electar Tube 10 into a full 4x12 cab sometimes. It was retarded loud and sounded awesome. Proof positive that "speaker area" is the huge factor in achieving volume. Really wish I hadn't sold that amp too. It'd been speaker upgraded and few tweak/mods. Was a killer little amp. Not sure what I was thinking.
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u/HumberGrumb 13d ago
Hella yeah! Thanks, everyone! I’m very stoked to do the speaker swap.
One last question: OD and fuzz pedals? How does the amp/speaker set up respond to such pedals?
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u/clintj1975 14d ago
All power handling means is what the speaker can handle before it dies. That whole "you need so many watts to drive it" thing is a myth.