Why does my Crate BX-15 have an external speaker jack?

[TUEP]

According to Crate its to plug into an external speaker! Its 12 watts, what on earth could it possibly power? Kind of tempted to plug it to my 4x10 just to see what happens, but kind of worried under powering them would do some damage.

[fenderhutz]

Underpowering doesn't kill speakers.

Just don't crank the gain and master.

Waiting...........

[Sartori]

Like Fenderhutz said, underpowering doesn't kill your speakers. That is a myth that arose from poor understanding of different issues. If speakers could really be damaged from too little power being applied to them, then your 12 watts won't damage them nearly as much as the zero watts pumping through those 10"s when you're not playing.

If you plug it into your 4x10, it will be a lot louder than just with its own internal speaker.

[C.Linton]

Give it a shot! Let us know what happens!

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by TUEP

Kind of tempted to plug it to my 4x10 just to see what happens, but kind of worried under powering them would do some damage.

If it's not blown by now, being severely underpowered for lenghty periods of time, it will probably be all right .

And since IBTL is not kosher here, I say IBT & GBJ

Regards
Sam

[calypsocoral302]

Originally Posted by TUEP

According to Crate its to plug into an external speaker! Its 12 watts, what on earth could it possibly power? Kind of tempted to plug it to my 4x10 just to see what happens, but kind of worried under powering them would do some damage.

My BFX-100 (100W, 15" driver) has one, too.

The tone is decent enough, but, if I'm getting a 4x10, I'd might as well get a new amp, too.

[Bassamatic]

Actually - underpowering DOES kill speakers - tweeters!

When a speaker is underpowered, the amp is often driven to clipping to make it louder. A clipped wave is a square wave, which is made of all higher harmonics. The result is that the full peak power of the amp is driven through the tweeters that normally see only a tiny part of your output power. Most of the energy is in the low frequencies.

In a case like this with a 12 Watt amp, it is doubtful you can have enough power to damage a tweeter, but you sure can with a 50 watt or 100 watt amp. Just be aware!

[BassmanPaul]

Originally Posted by T-Bird

And since IBTL is not kosher here, I say IBT & GBJ

Hey sam,

You lost me Bro. I need translation!

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by BassmanPaul

Hey sam,

You lost me Bro. I need translation!

Those are totally irrelevant acronyms, at least in this case.

The first one (IBT) is a David Allan Coe tune about smaller mammaries, the second one (GBJ) the total opposite of the first one.

Think of it as my personal "carrots". Or something...

Regards
Sam

[RH434]

LOL! I thought the same thing! I have a crate BT-50 that was a gift from my stepfather and I can't get rid of it for fear of offending him. It has an external cab output as well. I still have it set up in my practice space... with a few mods....

Well, it went out of warranty, and the output to the speaker quit. I thought the power amp circuit died, but no, if I plug it into one of my other cabs, it still works. So, it must be something else. I replaced the cheap 12" speaker with a Emenence Neo, Installed a tweeter, crossover and dual speaker input jack and cut the internal cheap speaker wire. I use it as a 12" monitor off my main rig for my drummer and I. If I need to use it alone, I just plug the external cab jack from the BT-50 into the new speaker inputs.

It's really not that bad now.....

[Implosion]

Originally Posted by Gio S

Actually - underpowering DOES kill speakers - tweeters!

When a speaker is underpowered, the amp is often driven to clipping to make it louder. A clipped wave is a square wave, which is made of all higher harmonics. The result is that the full peak power of the amp is driven through the tweeters that normally see only a tiny part of your output power. Most of the energy is in the low frequencies.

In a case like this with a 12 Watt amp, it is doubtful you can have enough power to damage a tweeter, but you sure can with a 50 watt or 100 watt amp. Just be aware!

But it's not the underpowering that is doing the killing. It's the overpowering caused by the cranking of the amp. And like you said, the 12 watt amp probably can't kill the tweeter but bigger amps can, eventhough the 12 watter is "underpowering" the cabinet more than the bigger amps. The confusion people (not Gio S, he is in the know, I'm just nitpicking with terminology) usually have with this is so contradicting that it's almost funny.

[TUEP]

Well....it worked. Would bass on a light jam or something! Kind of funny, the tone is a bit blah, but I am going to plug in my active 5 and see what happens. So far I have just been using an passive 4 stringer.