Speaker replacement

[lapideusvir]

Hello!
I´m experimenting with speaker swap on my Mambo 12". The amp has 200W.
I still have a Celestion G12-65 (65W) I have no other use for but I´m afraid that it cant handle the power. I use to play low volume. Will that work or is it too dangerous?

Best,
lapideus

[omphalopsychos]

It will work fine.

[AllanAllen]

I'm doing the same thing 200W amp into a 65W speaker. Been working fine all year, will post back if that changes.

[lapideusvir]

I'm doing the same thing 200W amp into a 65W speaker. Been working fine all year, will post back if that changes.

Ok! I just noticed that it is a 16Ohm Speaker. I guess that the loudness will be reduced (Amp puts out 200W on 8 Ohm).

[twtunes]

Speakers don't blow like they did in the 70s and earlier. Better suspensions, perfect alignment, better heat dissipation. The main factor is a speaker will clip, not be able to deliver the volume. This shows up in the low end. Lots of players like that sound.

[vintagelove]

If it's purely for clean playing, do yourself a favor and try to demo a high headroom, "flat'ish family" speaker. Something like an Ev12L, Peavey black widow (1203) or even a scorpion (ideally a plus).

Once you get used to those speakers, cleans on celestion voiced speaker... well... I'll just say, I'm a convert.

Heavy as a son a tho.

[sgosnell]

You won't reach 200W from the amp until you have the volume at 100% and everything else maxed - gain, tones, et al. Even then, it's unlikely, expecially running into a 16ohm load.

[jads57]

Celestion makes a Copperback Neodymium 250 watt 8 ohms speaker. Neodymium speakers tend to be lighter on the low end in general. But they really are nice on your back when going home after a long gig,Lol!

If you want loud clean low end try a Celestion BN12 300watt 8 ohms. Quilter amps used these in some of their extension cabs and Micro Pro 12” combos.
I have one and a Celestion TF808 100 watt in my older Quiter Aviator 1x12” Combo. Had to have the baffle board replaced to accommodate both speakers. But man that amp is LOUD&PROUD!

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Ok! I just noticed that it is a 16Ohm Speaker. I guess that the loudness will be reduced (Amp puts out 200W on 8 Ohm).

Contact Mambo and ask. It's a class D, and they do not usually put twice the power into half the impedance. I believe the big Quilter 202 heads (like many top quality class D amps today) are rated the same at 4 and 8 Ohms. I've never seen a 16 Ohm rating on a high end Class D amp, though - so I don't know if this holds up above 8 Ohms.

As jads57 says, the BN12-300 is a sweet 12" neo speaker that can handle the power. I have one in my Quilter Block Dock 12HD (with an OD202 head) and it's really fine for jazz guitar. It's neutral, full, and sweet sounding with archtops.

[213Cobra]

....are rated the same at 4 and 8 Ohms. I've never seen a 16 Ohm rating on a high end Class D amp, though - so I don't know if this holds up above 8 Ohms...

In hifi, I usually run tube amps but I have one system that has a pair of m2tech (Italy) Crosby power monoblocks. The Crosby is an ICE Power Class D amp with a proprietary input stage. A single stereo amp is rated 60/60W into 8 ohms, and 110/110W into 4 Ohms. Bridged for mono, each monoblock is rated 180W into 8 Ohms and 350W into 4 Ohms. Note that the bridged amp has tested to 415W before clipping. So, I don't know about this guitar amp but in hifi, Class D amps commonly put out more power into 4 Ohms than into 8 Ohms, and when I tested my Crosby monoblocks into 16 Ohms, power before clipping was into the vicinity of 90W as opposed to 180W into 8 Ohms.

Phil

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

In hifi, I usually run tube amps but I have one system that has a pair of m2tech (Italy) Crosby power monoblocks. The Crosby is an ICE Power Class D amp with a proprietary input stage. A single stereo amp is rated 60/60W into 8 ohms, and 110/110W into 4 Ohms. Bridged for mono, each monoblock is rated 180W into 8 Ohms and 350W into 4 Ohms. Note that the bridged amp has tested to 415W before clipping. So, I don't know about this guitar amp but in hifi, Class D amps commonly put out more power into 4 Ohms than into 8 Ohms, and when I tested my Crosby monoblocks into 16 Ohms, power before clipping was into the vicinity of 90W as opposed to 180W into 8 Ohms.

Phil

The limiting factor is the power supply. High end audio (like most high end guitar amps) is usually conservatively designed and rated, and many are grossly overdesigned. This accounts for a lot of their premium prices. But because class D guitar amps are desirable as much for their small size and light weight as for their sound, most do not carry huge power supplies with storage caps, heavy wiring, etc.

The heart of most class D guitar amps is a switching power supply that maxes out at a little above the power needed to produce rated audio output. But what makes class D class D is the switched power output stage, which is apart from the power supply. It uses pulse width modulation.

So you could build a class D amp with the same kind of huge power supplies used in big tube amps, throw in some big caps to filter the DC , and provide peak power to produce twice the wattage into 4 Ohms that it pushes through 8. If you did that to a Blu 6, it’d be as big and heavy as a tube head (minus the output transformer). There’s a wide range of power supply designs for our cl D amps, with most using a switching or otherwise simple PS that lets the amp reach its rated output power with the supplied speaker. But any more than that isn’t really useful. If you want a more powerful amp, buy one. This is why there’s no ext speaker jack on a Tonemaster Deluxe. The PS wouldn’t be able to push more through 2 speakers than one, and Fender doesn’t want you stuffing a lower impedance driver in it to try to get more wattage.

Your M2Tech amps are in the overbuilt category. They consume 615W to produce 110W / channel stereo into 4 Ohms. That’s about 35% efficient. The rest of the power consumed is converted to heat or otherwise lost, Most class D guitar amps are somewhere around 90% efficient. The peak power reserve is worth the cost etc for home audio. It wouldn’t be to most of us carrying these amps to a gig.

[213Cobra]

The limiting factor is the power supply. High end audio (like most high end guitar amps) is usually conservatively designed and rated, and many are grossly overdesigned. This accounts for a lot of their premium prices. But because class D guitar amps are desirable as much for their small size and light weight as for their sound, most do not carry huge power supplies with storage caps, heavy wiring, etc.

The heart of most class D guitar amps is a switching power supply that maxes out at a little above the power needed to produce rated audio output. But what makes class D class D is the switched power output stage, which is apart from the power supply. It uses pulse width modulation.

So you could build a class D amp with the same kind of huge power supplies used in big tube amps, throw in some big caps to filter the DC , and provide peak power to produce twice the wattage into 4 Ohms that it pushes through 8. If you did that to a Blu 6, it’d be as big and heavy as a tube head (minus the output transformer). There’s a wide range of power supply designs for our cl D amps, with most using a switching or otherwise simple PS that lets the amp reach its rated output power with the supplied speaker. But any more than that isn’t really useful. If you want a more powerful amp, buy one. This is why there’s no ext speaker jack on a Tonemaster Deluxe. The PS wouldn’t be able to push more through 2 speakers than one, and Fender doesn’t want you stuffing a lower impedance driver in it to try to get more wattage.

Your M2Tech amps are in the overbuilt category. They consume 615W to produce 110W / channel stereo into 4 Ohms. That’s about 35% efficient. The rest of the power consumed is converted to heat or otherwise lost, Most class D guitar amps are somewhere around 90% efficient. The peak power reserve is worth the cost etc for home audio. It wouldn’t be to most of us carrying these amps to a gig.

Yes, I know how a Class D amp works. The Crosby weighs less than 5 lbs (2.1 kg). m2tech did not take the big (tube) amp linear approach for its power supply. In mono mode into a 4 ohms load it will produce up to 440W for 71.5% efficiency. Guitar amps are underbuilt relative to hifi amps because both the X-power-at-Y-distortion requirements are less stringent, the required frequency range is narrower, and typically the dynamic requirements are somewhat lower.

Electric guitars are pretty much pooped out above 5 or 6kHz and below 80Hz. This is one reason why a 100W tube guitar amp has a relatively and physically-smaller linear power supply than an equal output hifi tube amp. Given no requirement for linear response as wide as 20Hz - 20kHz and the (in hifi terms) horrendous non-linearity in guitar speakers (guitar amps are intentionally voiced) it should be very easy to achieve the usual solid state amp output multiplier as load increases 16 > 8 > 4 Ohms, using the usual Class D lightweight switching power supply. No, doing so would not make a Blu Six as big and heavy as a tube head. In fact, I suspect the Bud is already there while weighing only 13 lbs. (the Six).

The Henriksen, unlike old school guitar amps, uses an Eminence Beta speaker (in either size amp) which has hifi and car audio uses. It's not a voiced speaker ala a Celestion guitar speaker (you wouldn't use a Celestion Creamback for a hifi speaker), and it adds a neodymium tweeter. The full specs for the electronics aren't listed wrt frequency response, distortion, headroom, etc., but it has the marks of being a hifi approach to designing and building a guitar amp. It's also only 40% efficient, suggesting it's been built for more demanding audio performance than a typical guitar amp.

Henriksen doesn't publish a 4 Ohms power output rating for the Bud and Blu. They claim 120W into 8 Ohms, the nominal load of the Beta speaker. Rated distortion is unknown. But we might reasonably infer that the Henriksen 120W amps roughly double their power into a 4 Ohms load by virtue of the fact that the company specifies any extension speaker used with the parallel ext speaker output must have minimum impedance of 8 Ohms, and be able to handle over 100 Watts. If the amp did not roughly double its output into the resulting 4 Ohms, an extension speaker in parallel with the internal speaker would not need to have over 100 Watts of power handling.

High end audio amps are generally not "grossly overdesigned" relative to their design aims. You can dispute the design aims if you want. But the amp maker doesn't know what speakers the amp will drive. They are designing for vanishingly-low distortion across the entire 20Hz-20kHz frequency range (and sometimes broader). They sometimes build to support at least +3dB of dynamic headroom. And that's before you get to the cosmetic requirements for packaging for consumer domestic acceptability.

Phil

[jorgemg1984]

The Celestion will handle it fine if you just play at low volume. If you're happy with the sound, don't change it... But, if not and if weight is not an issue, just get an EV12L. It's really heavy but really good for cleans and "flat" amps.

[lapideusvir]

The Celestion will handle it fine if you just play at low volume. If you're happy with the sound, don't change it... But, if not and if weight is not an issue, just get an EV12L. It's really heavy but really good for cleans and "flat" amps.

Damn, these EV12Ls are expensive these days...

[jorgemg1984]

Damn, these EV12Ls are expensive these days...

Yeah, heavy and expensive... Just keep the Celestion!