Speaker Wattage

[Warheart]

ok, so some speakers have a higher wattage than others. i've heard that makes them break up later when you crank up the overdrive. if you go on www.celestion.com they tell you the power rating (a 2 digit #, IE. Celestion's seventy 80, has a power rating of 80) of any speaker they have, but if i go on the peavey website and check out the Sheffield Pro 1200 Low frequency driver, it gives this:

Impedance: 8 Ohms
Power capacity: 800 W Peak, 400 W Program, 200 W Continuous
Sensitivity: 96.5 dB / 1 W 1 m
Usable freq. range: 50 Hz ~ 4 kHz
Cone: Kevlar® impregnated cellulose
Voice coil diameter: 2.5 inch / 63.5 mm
Voice coil material: 2 layers, thermally bonded copper wire, Kapton former, Nomex® stiffener

is there some kinda formula to figure out the wattage or something? i'm severely confused. i'm looking to replace one of my speaker in my 5150 combo, but i want to match up wattage and ohmage as best i can.

[sanrafael]

Re: Speaker Wattage

Continuous power perhaps should be called average power. In most musical waveforms, the power goes up and down in time over a wide range, but it has some average power. It has high peaks, but the average power, the heating in the speaker coil, is not nearly as much as the peak power. When you crank up the overdrive with a guitar amp, the peak and average powers are not very different. The distorted waveform has a very high density relative to other kinds of music. I think that the continuous power rating of a speaker should be at least as large as the average power the amp can supply divided by the number of speakers in the cab. That is, the total continuous power of the speakers in the cab should be at least equal to the amp power, but it is a good idea to allow some safety margin. Others might disagree on how much safety margin to allow. Some guitar speaker makers only give one power as you say. For Eminence, this is a continuous rating with a generous safety margin, but I think that it is a good idea to be a bit conservative. In general you need to check a company's definition of what its power rating means; if they do not say what they mean, you might not want to buy it.

[Warheart]

Re: Speaker Wattage

hmm, thanks for the info, i'll be sure to check the speakers out a lot before i buy them.

[D-EJ915]

Re: Speaker Wattage

If you wire in series then you add the impedances...like 4 4-Ohm speakers would be 16-Ohms. If you wire then in Parallel then you put it like 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 and then take the inverse root (^-1) and that gives you your impedance!

Not sure if you understand that, but just get speakers that handle above what you're letting flow to them ( if you have an amp cranking 4-Ohm of 50W, you could use two 16-Ohm speakers in parallel and then wire those in parallel to the same setup and get 4-Ohms, and each speaker would have to handle only 12.5W)...

[Panzer]

Re: Speaker Wattage

The difference is simply in HOW the companies measure their drivers' power handling. If you see a company using a huge maximum wattage like 800 and trying to cover up the continuous power handling just avoid them. For your 5150 I would reccomend taking a look at the higher quality drivers like Celestion, Eminance, or Jensen. Not only will those companies offer a driver specifically for your type of amp/music/wattage the speakers will just be better in general, especially durability and product life. I do believe you can easily re-use the baskets and magnet assembly in the higher end drivers. If you blow a cone, or seize a coil you dont need spend full replacement cost. If you really want to have complete control over when your tone starts to break up you can make adjustments to the resistor sizes and impedance. Make sure you talk to an amp tech if you start to customize your amp though.

[AcidBurn]

Re: Speaker Wattage

If you wire in series then you add the impedances...like 4 4-Ohm speakers would be 16-Ohms. If you wire then in Parallel then you put it like 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 and then take the inverse root (^-1) and that gives you your impedance!

Not sure if you understand that, but just get speakers that handle above what you're letting flow to them ( if you have an amp cranking 4-Ohm of 50W, you could use two 16-Ohm speakers in parallel and then wire those in parallel to the same setup and get 4-Ohms, and each speaker would have to handle only 12.5W)...

You can also wire two sets in parrallel then connect them in series(or vice versa) to get the same impedance as a single speaker. ex. 4 8ohm speakers wired series/parrallel = 8ohm total impedance