Speakers for low powered amp?

Richardj

This weeks naïve question from Richardj.....

Can you overload a low powered amp with too large a speaker cab? Obviously make sure the impedances match but I mean running a 5 watt amp into say a 4x12 cab. Would this make the amp work too hard and potentially damage it?

robinbowes

No.

ICBM

No, it's absolutely fine. As long as the impedance is right the amp has no way of 'knowing' what the power rating of the cab is, which is just an upper limit.

Also, although it's a common belief that speakers need to be "driven" with "enough" power, this is largely a myth - while there are a few speakers which seem to need a bit of a push to sound good at very low levels, most are perfectly OK even at whisper volume.

Sassafras

I tried my ZVex Nano head through a 4x12 and it sounded huge and they're only about half a watt.

ICBM

Sassafras said:

I tried my ZVex Nano head through a 4x12 and it sounded huge and they're only about half a watt.

Fully overdriven! The clean power is in the 0.1W range if I remember rightly. It's an unusual amp in that the clean headroom is much lower than the maximum output power - but that's what it's designed for, to get great big-amp distortion at very low volume.

I wish I hadn't sold mine now.