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Position:Home>Performing Arts> Do I HAVE to match amp and cab wattage?Question: Do I HAVE to match amp and cab wattage!? I have a 100w 4 Ohm Sunn Beta 205 Cab!. Im looking to buy a head for it ( I play guitar)!. Now do i have to match the watts or is it ok if i use a 75w amp or lets say a 150w amp!. what is the general rule when it comes to this!? I know for sure you need to match the Ohms!.
Thanks! Www@QuestionHome@Com Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: While the other answer was very acceptable, let me supplement it!. The general rule is that if you have more amp watts than speaker watts, then you can't turn push more watts from the amp than the speakers are rated for!. A 100w amp can totally power a 10 watt cab!.!.!. just don't turn it up very loud! The converse is also true - you can have more speaker watts than amp watts, but it's a little harder on the amp, and it won't be as loud as the appropriately powered amplifier!. This makes it more likely that you'll want to turn the amp up, and the harder an amp is pushed the more likely it is that the power amp will hiccup or fail, which may result in a blown speaker and/or damaged amp!. I have a 300 watt Marshall 1960a cab!. It's a beautiful thing!. I normally play through it with a 100 watt Mesa Boogie trem-o-verb!. Unfortunately, when I was pulling the power tubes one day I accidentally cracked one of them, and the only replacement I could find on short notice was a pair of matched 6L6 tubes, not a quad!. Using only two tubes reduces the wattage I have available by a certain percent!.!.!. yet it still powers it just fine!. In fact, I can still shake the room with it! I also have an Epiphone Valve Jr, which is only 5 watts, yet it powers the amp just fine as well!. Caveat: It is about half the volume of the mesa when the Epi is close to maximum, which is what I would expect, since wattage to volume is logarithmic and not linear!. (quick aside - most of the volume your hear is in the first 10 or 20 watts of an amp!. the rest is headroom!. It takes a tenfold increase in wattage to sound twice as loud, so a 100w amp is only twice as loud as a 10 watt amp, and a 5 watt amp is only half as loud as a 50 watt amp!) As long as I don't push the 5 watt amp too hard, which sometimes I want to do, I should be in the clear!. Tubes have a lot more ability to cope with things like different wattage than solid state amps, partly because of the way they're rated, partly because of their output impedances!.!.!. oh, never mind!. Anyways, that's me and my experience!. 100 watts to 100 watts is safe, but it is perfectly okay to go a little under or a little over, as long as you understand what you're doing (and don't let someone who doesn't eff with your amp)!. Good luck! SaulWww@QuestionHome@Com Gotta start with some definitions first: 1!. The wattage rating on the speaker cabinet indicates the maximum amount of power you can put into it!. 2!. The wattage rating of the amp indicates the maximum amount of power it can supply (to the speakers)!. As long as 1 is greater than 2, you won't have any problems!. BTW, is that Sunn Beta a 1970s vintage !? It may be worth a lot to some collectors now!.Www@QuestionHome@Com |