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Volume limit on DSL100 to not blow one of the four G12EVHs in my cab?

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  • Volume limit on DSL100 to not blow one of the four G12EVHs in my cab?

    This has been discussed ad nauseum online, "EVH 4X12 is made of four 20 watt speakers but they're secretly not actually 20 watts, they're 25-30, but that's still too low if we're talking 100 watt head, so what's the deal?" But let's take as a starting assumption that the G12EVH is a 25 watt speaker. I've never heard anyone really say it's actually 20 watts, some people have suggested it could be as high as 30 watts in reality. But let's take the average here.

    I'm playing a JCM2000 100 watter, where on the volume does this amp start to punch through that 100 watt ceiling? I once had a Boss TAE for about five seconds (I'm not an attenuator guy) and that device is equipped with a clipping light (the TAE has adjustable wattage and the light trips whenever you push past the setting). The DSL never once triggered it even dimed. By contrast, my Dad's Bassman 50 constantly tripped it.

    What's a safe volume here? Do these preamp-gain-heavy amps like the DSL stay closer to their stated wattage, perhaps? Should I keep below 5? 7? Not that I'll ever need to go that high, but I wanna know the ground rules.
    Last edited by Peaj; 11-19-2021, 05:39 PM.

  • #2
    Not sure if there is a safe volume. Remember guitar signals have peaks and valleys. You only need one good peak to blow a speaker. I live by the rule the cab should be at least 1.5x the wattage of the amp. A 100w amp I would use a 150 watt cab at minimum. At bedroom levels you should be okay. If you are gigging/jamming with it be careful.

    I have the same head BTW.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Securb View Post
      Not sure if there is a safe volume. Remember guitar signals have peaks and valleys. You only need one good peak to blow a speaker. I live by the rule the cab should be at least 1.5x the wattage of the amp. A 100w amp I would use a 150 watt cab at minimum. At bedroom levels you should be okay. If you are gigging/jamming with it be careful.

      I have the same head BTW.
      Let's say I buy an EVH 2X12 and slap it on top on the 4X12, perhaps I'm good? Covers me up to 1.5 times the stated wattage.

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      • #4
        I did something similar with my JCM 2000. I had a 100w 1x15 cab and a 300w 4x12. I had no problems.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Peaj View Post

          Let's say I buy an EVH 2X12 and slap it on top on the 4X12, perhaps I'm good? Covers me up to 1.5 times the stated wattage.
          I don't believe that helps at all. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

          edit; Does it matter if they are daisy-chained vs both from the tap?
          Last edited by dave74; 11-19-2021, 06:38 PM.

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          • #6
            Just another thought: If play on a low volume, you need more bass to have a full sound. If you go louder, you can roll the bass down. And remember the low freq. kill your speakers. Most guitar have too much lows, which sounds good playing alone, but muds up when the band kicks in.
            I get the feeling the A8 will blow your skirt up more so - Edgecrusher

            Smooth trades with Jerryjg, ArtieToo, Theodie, Micah, trevorus, Pierre, pzaxtl, damian1122, Thames, Diocletian, Kevinabb, Fakiekid, oilpit, checo, BachToRock, majewsky, joyouswolf, Koreth, Pontiac Jack, Jeff_H

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Little Pigbacon
              It depends on the effective impedances of the two cabinets, how the power divides. (Are all the EVH cabinets 16 ohms now? That sounds like two 8-ohm speakers in series for the 2x12, and a series-parallel combination of four 16-ohm speakers in the 4x12.)

              If the amp was truly delivering 100 watts, each cabinet would be getting 50 watts. Each speaker in the 2x12 would be getting 25 W, and each speaker in the 4x12 would be getting 12.5 W. Could you run two 4x12 16-ohm cabs?
              What if the two cabs were daisy-chained?




              Off topic a bit because it's more about impedance balance on the transformer, not wattage like this OP.

              I remember a discussion on another forum years ago about how we should always use the same speaker cable length when using two cabs each off their own tap.
              One member posted that he uses a cab below the head and another on the other side of the stage which often required a 50ft cable so the cable would be laying out of the way.
              Then someone else posted that he should just daisy the cabs since they already had in-out jacks for daisy. He said that would keep the transformer running balanced.

              I know nothing on this but always have wondered if these sorts of things would even make any difference at those impedance points, or the differences between at those cable lengths (say 3ft vs 50ft).

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              • #8
                Your total cab load is the sum of those 4 speakers. You won’t blow them up unless you dimed the amp wide open for an extended period of time. You’re fine.
                Last edited by ErikH; 11-21-2021, 09:20 AM.

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                • #9
                  As Erik said, it will be fine unless you are running it on 10 all the time, and even then, it'll probably be fine for a long time. Guys used to run Superleads into 4-12 Greenback cabinets all the time back in the day.

                  LPB, his speaker wire is probably 16AWG (.004 ohms/foot) or 14AWG (.0025 ohms/foot), even 18AWG is only .0064 ohms per foot, the resistance in a short speaker wire run is irrelevant, you're way overthinking this.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Peaj View Post

                    Let's say I buy an EVH 2X12 and slap it on top on the 4X12, perhaps I'm good? Covers me up to 1.5 times the stated wattage.
                    Nope

                    Max wattage will be exactly the same. It's still putting half your wattage into 2 EVH speakers.
                    "New stuff always sucks" -Me

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                    • #11
                      LPB wasn't overthinking it, I was. LPB was just going wonky in the attempt to explain my silly questions.

                      Adieu is confirming what I was thinking on the wattage issue.

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                      • #12
                        Cable lengths of 50' or less are insignificant in terms of total resistance. Obviously having a larger gauge wire is better if you plan on going with longer lengths, but most speaker cables are not much smaller than 16ga. There is probably more resistance in each of the connections than the wire itself.

                        The hard part is knowing if your amp is even up loud enough to be producing full output? The DSL series of amps is more of a preamp-based distortion circuit. So you really don't get too much if any power amp distortion, which means that if you play at modest levels, you are well below peak power output. This assumes that your amp will actually produce the stated output anyway?

                        Another thing to keep in mind is the actual rating of the speaker. A greenback is known as a 25-watt speaker, but is that peak watts, or is that continuous watts? Celestions site says the " Nominal " wattage of the EVH G12 is 20-watts. To me, that means its peak wattage is double that, making it capable of handling 40-watts peak. Sending it 40 watts will spell very sudden death for the speaker. I would imagine that the wattage most guitar speakers have is the average wattage they can handle. So you can double the wattage safely as an assumption of their peak rating.

                        Guitar playing has a rather low duty cycle. I.E. even if the amp is producing its full rated power when you play, it is only producing that power for very short bursts as you play. Every time you stop, there is no power dissipation, so the average power over time is rather low. Supposing you play full bore and are constantly playing a power chord, perhaps you will have a higher duty cycle, but most songs are 3-4 minutes long and most bands have a 30-second interval between songs when playing live. This may be enough of a break to keep dissipation in a safe place for most low-wattage speakers?

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                        • #13
                          Then I bid Adieu to this thread.

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                          • #14
                            LPG, not exactly. I'm saying that if you sent just the one speaker 40 watts peak for more than a moment, it would likely blow. But you should be able to send it 20 watts all day long, 30 watts for quite some time, but 40 watts it will burn up in short order. This again assumes peak wattage. I would argue that a guitar amp turned all the way up, may produce its peak power, but only so long as you are playing it. So any moment you stop, the average power over time is reduced from the peak wattage to some average below that ( 80 watts for example ). So 4 speakers that say 20 watts each can certainly handle 80 watts of average power from the amplifier.

                            Most speakers have 3 wattage ratings, RMS ( also called continuous ), Program ( typical recommended power ), and Peak ( the wattage at which the speaker will die in very short order ). So when I see nominal on a speaker, I consider it to be either RMS, or Program rating, but not peak. The wattage for each rating typically doubles. So a speaker with a 100-watt RMS rating will generally have a 200-watt program rating and a 400-watt peak rating.

                            So with Celestion choosing to just give a nominal rating, I would consider that to be either the RMS or the Program rating. The program rating is essentially the ideal power to supply the speaker with. So a speaker with a 20-watt Program rating would be 40-watts Peak and 10-watts RMS. That is why I believe the speaker can handle 20-30 watts with no issue. With 4 of them, you would have at least 80 watts to as much as 120 watts of power handling between them.

                            If you are not diming the amp, I don't see why you should have any problems. If you are diming the amp, well, I won't be around to hear it

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                            • #15
                              Over thinking it by far. You will be fine, just plug in and play. Of course if you are really concerned, just order some Scumbacks M75s in a higher wattage

                              FYI the EVH G12M are just relabeled heritage Greenbacks.
                              -Chris

                              Originally posted by John Suhr
                              “Practice cures most tone issues”

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