What are those circumstances?
From where I stand, running a lower powered amp into a higher capacity cab is a very safe bet, and will give you more perceived volume than the other way around.
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Higher wattage amp or Cab?
- Thread starter Spoono Ghiefardi
- Start date
What are those circumstances?
From where I stand, running a lower powered amp into a higher capacity cab is a very safe bet, and will give you more perceived volume than the other way around.
I personally cannot think of any...the myth of damage by under-powering has been done to death on every audio forum I know of.
Yup. Think about it. Why woud a cab care if it only sees 1/10 its rated power? It doesn't care. Well, I guess it could feel lonely or unloved. Now Im sad
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Not because of it being under powered. I was more thinking if you had a cab that had only marginally more capacity than the amp you are using, and you run a lot of distortion that it could stress the speaker beyond limits. I'm t alking dirty gritty signals with lots of flat topped wave forms. If you are running a clean signal then there should not be a problem.
I personally try to match my amps to my speakers power handling rating. I'm ok with going over by about 100w or so.
That would be a case of over powering. Dirty signal/wave form type doesnt matter.
Please note that some of what I said in this thread was taken out of context.
The person responsible for doing that responded as if that was my only comment.
Then someone else responded to those out of context remarks perhaps not being aware that there was more to this than the included "sound bite".
If you are not interested in reading the thread and all of the related posts in the context of that intended by the authors, then don't bother adding to a conversation of which you have not heard in its entirety. It only serves to make you look foolish by intentionally putting a different spin on what someone else wrote by leaving out information.
Subsequent readers look foolish by believing what someone said someone else said.
Taking someone's word out of context is the stuff of which political ads are made.
In my opinion those ads cater to the lowest common denominator.
They cater to those who can't or don't want to bother to think for themselves.
They cater to those who would rather just blindly follow what someone said someone else said.
If anyone insists on continuing to play games like this I will insist on calling you out.
To everyone else, please understand that I will not be responsible for my words when others have twisted them by omission.
Thank you.
Original reply:
There does not seem to be a clear answer, hence your trials in trying to find one.
If you have an amp that will make more power than your cabs are rated for, you will have to be careful not to turn up too loud.
If you have cabs that are rated to handle more power than the amp, then in general you should not be concerned about speaker damage.
That being said, there are circumstances where a lower power amp can cause damage to a higher power cab.
It is opinion as to which is better. My personal preference and recommendation is to not overpower your cabs. There is no harm in under powering them. Another thing I like about less amp and more cab is that you have more speaker headroom before they start to max out. My feeling is, what is the point of having extra amp power if you can't use it?
In either case, you want to be cautious and alert to how you treat your gear. If the speakers start to sound weird, back off on the volume.
Others will have differing opinions and YMMV.
The person responsible for doing that responded as if that was my only comment.
Then someone else responded to those out of context remarks perhaps not being aware that there was more to this than the included "sound bite".
If you are not interested in reading the thread and all of the related posts in the context of that intended by the authors, then don't bother adding to a conversation of which you have not heard in its entirety. It only serves to make you look foolish by intentionally putting a different spin on what someone else wrote by leaving out information.
Subsequent readers look foolish by believing what someone said someone else said.
Taking someone's word out of context is the stuff of which political ads are made.
In my opinion those ads cater to the lowest common denominator.
They cater to those who can't or don't want to bother to think for themselves.
They cater to those who would rather just blindly follow what someone said someone else said.
If anyone insists on continuing to play games like this I will insist on calling you out.
To everyone else, please understand that I will not be responsible for my words when others have twisted them by omission.
Thank you.
Original reply:
There does not seem to be a clear answer, hence your trials in trying to find one.
If you have an amp that will make more power than your cabs are rated for, you will have to be careful not to turn up too loud.
If you have cabs that are rated to handle more power than the amp, then in general you should not be concerned about speaker damage.
That being said, there are circumstances where a lower power amp can cause damage to a higher power cab.
It is opinion as to which is better. My personal preference and recommendation is to not overpower your cabs. There is no harm in under powering them. Another thing I like about less amp and more cab is that you have more speaker headroom before they start to max out. My feeling is, what is the point of having extra amp power if you can't use it?
In either case, you want to be cautious and alert to how you treat your gear. If the speakers start to sound weird, back off on the volume.
Others will have differing opinions and YMMV.
I don't assume that everyone here knows the difference. Cab power capacity and amp output specifications do not normally take a heavily over driven amp into consideration.
Hence my comment in my original reply, that stated one should back off the volume if you hear weird things happening with your speakers.
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Distortion and dirty signal have nothing to do with cab power capacity. Heavily over driven amps put out power, so do clean ones. If that power exceeds the capacity of their cab, then trouble starts.
Low power/distortion/clipped wave form is never the cause of cab destruction. If it was you would blow up an Ampeg 810 cranking a B15 through it every time. Every guitarist would blow their rig every time.
What does happen as distortion and compression come in to play is that average power to the cab increases. This can OVER power a cab. This can damage a cab.
I don't assume everyone here knows the difference, and dont care what considerations may normally be taken. It doesnt change the physics of it all, and if people dont inform themselves, or do so correctly with out superstition, then I dont care if they burn their gear up. Ignorance is not bliss.
To this I'll add: There are some key points to be aware of. First is the max. SPL of the speaker, in other words, how loud can it get at what distance (usually measured at 1 meter; it's up to you to determine how loud you need to be at some other distance & calculate whether or not the speaker can even do it). Next is, can the speaker handle the power necessary to drive it to the level necessary to get you the SPL you need? Finally, can the amp deliver that much power? Err on the side of conservatism & try not to push anything close to its limits.
There is a sticky on this forum about over/underpowering cabinets. I suggest reading that.
You said what I was trying to say, only better, thank you.
Yes, I believe that distortion that takes place ahead of the output stages of the amp is less harmful than those that occur due to output stage clipping.
Putting a Fuzz Box ahead of your amp is a less destructive distortion because it is not causing your speakers to crash hard up against their physical limits of travel.
And that is really the thing we are trying to avoid isn't it?
If the volume is the same, then it is the same. Power amp distortion is no more dangerous than any other distortion provided it isnt over powering the speakers.
There are two main elements.. the long term thermal capacity of the speakers, and xmax
Drive the speakers routinely above an average of 500w RMS and they will burn out. Drive the speakers at less than 500W but with sufficient peaks that xmax is exceeded and it can still wreck them. The cabinet design, EQ, and program of music can influence whether you go over xmax.
That a speaker could be damaged by less power than it is designed to handle was never the intended argument.
It is not that 400W will damage a 500W cabinet. It is that a 400W rated amp can damage a 500W cabinet.
A danger is that someone might assume that they are perfectly safe driving a 500W cab with a 400W rated amp, and therefore drive the amp as hard as want.
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It is not that 400W will damage a 500W cabinet. It is that a 400W rated amp can damage a 500W cabinet.
A danger is that someone might assume that they are perfectly safe driving a 500W cab with a 400W rated amp, and therefore drive the amp as hard as want.
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