Speaker wattage

[Slaphound]

How does the wattage of the speaker and the wattage of the head work together?

Like, If I have a 500 watt speaker and I have a 150 watt head driving it, What is the difference of putting a 300 watt head to drive it? Will it be louder?

Now what if I have a 100 watt speaker and a 500 watt head. Does it blow the speaker?

Which one applies when there is some definite farting out when the volume and gain are all the way up? Certain notes sound different and it just bogs down the sound.

thanks

 

[Luke73]

The wattage rating of a speaker is the amount of clean power it can handle safely.

The wattage rating of a head is the amount of RMS power it can produce.

You can use a 500w head with a 300 cab no problem, just don't crank it to 11 on the volume dial.

Also, be careful not to drive your solid state head into clipping. That has the potential to damage any speaker regardless of it's rated wattage capacity.

Do not run your amp with the volume and gain all the way up.

The gain knob is there to match the output of your bass - and the volume knob is there to allow you to determine the volume you want to play at. Don't crank either one - you'll damage things.

 

[Bassmec]

Its the point at which the voice coil melts, usually running pink noise which is sort of every kind of distortion all included.
At least thats what Celestion do, as to what Mr Behringer does we can only guess.

 

[bongomania]

A good rule of thumb: if your speakers are distorting (I mean the speaker cones themselves are rattling, buzzing, or farting, not distortion from the amp or any effects) then you need to turn down the amp. This is true regardless of what any of the wattage ratings are. If turning down the amp makes you too quiet for the gig, then just turn down the lows and turn up the mids- in many cases that will save your butt, giving you more volume with less speaker distortion.

Believe your ears, not the ratings- the ratings are only a guideline, and they lose a lot of their meaning depending on how the components are being used by any given bassist.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

Also, be careful not to drive your solid state head into clipping. That has the potential to damage any speaker regardless of it's rated wattage capacity.

No, not quite. This has been debunked countless times here. Clipping will only harm your speaker if it results in the amp generating more power than the speaker can handle (and even then, it's not the clipping per se that's doing the damage but the high average level of power delivered). If it doesn't, the speaker will not be harmed.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Which one applies when there is some definite farting out when the volume and gain are all the way up?

Both. When you exceed the undistorted power output limit of the amp or the undistorted power input limit of the speaker the result will be distortion.