Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

assquatch20

assquatch20

New member
The title is kinda simplified, but a buddy of mine seems to think running my little 5w amps through large speakers (75-100w) could be bad for the OT over the long run. I'm curious if he's just worrying too much. He's surprised it sounds as good as it does, thinking the speaker would react like the hallway to the hotdog. He figured the OT would have a hard time after awhile signaling into what he called a "bottomless pit" of a high wattage speaker.

What say you?
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

assquatch20 said:
The title is kinda simplified, but a buddy of mine seems to think running my little 5w amps through large speakers (75-100w) could be bad for the OT over the long run. I'm curious if he's just worrying too much. He's surprised it sounds as good as it does, thinking the speaker would react like the hallway to the hotdog. He figured the OT would have a hard time after awhile signaling into what he called a "bottomless pit" of a high wattage speaker.

What say you?
Click to expand...

As long as there isn't a gross impedance mismatch, it'll be fine. People have been using 5W Fender Champs to power Marshall stacks for decades.

Amps see a resistive load. As long as it isn't impedance mismatched from what it's output transformer is designed to drive, it doesn't care if it's one speaker or sixteen, and whether it's rated for 15W or 4500W.

Many high wattage speakers are more efficient than lower rated speakers [thanks to oversized magnet/voice coil]. Your 5W amp wont likely push a high wattage speaker arrangement into speaker breakup. Which many musicians struggle to avoid, anyways. Insufficient power transformers are actually more likely to have problems driving inefficient low-rated speakers.

I've used 1W, 4W, 15W and 100W tube amps with my Mesa/Boogie Thiele EVM12L. The 1W sounds the best of them. [And the 15W is actually the same amp in full power mode.]
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

Your buddy is right. Think about it like this. It's like a small guy bench pressing, lets say 225 lbs. If the bar is loaded with 9, small 10lb plates on each end, then that smaller guy will have a much lower chance of injuring himself compared to if the bar was loaded with 2, much larger 45 lb. plates on each side. It's simple physics.

:banana:
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

riiiight... :D its fine. as long as your amp wants an 8 ohm load and your speaker is 8 ohms then you are fine. the amp doesnt much care if its a 1000w 48" speaker or 10w 3.5" speaker.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

Despair said:
As long as there isn't a gross impedance mismatch, it'll be fine. People have been using 5W Fender Champs to power Marshall stacks for decades.

As long as it isn't impedance mismatched from what it's output transformer is designed to drive, it doesn't care if it's one speaker or sixteen, and whether it's rated for 15W or 4500W.
Click to expand...
Correct.

Despair said:
Amps see a resistive load.
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they very much see a reactive one! It's one of the several reasons adoption of -fb is often employed around the output block, and also one of the key reasons you get so much tonal variations from speaker choice.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

assquatch20 said:
The title is kinda simplified, but a buddy of mine seems to think running my little 5w amps through large speakers (75-100w) could be bad for the OT over the long run. I'm curious if he's just worrying too much. He's surprised it sounds as good as it does, thinking the speaker would react like the hallway to the hotdog. He figured the OT would have a hard time after awhile signaling into what he called a "bottomless pit" of a high wattage speaker.

What say you?
Click to expand...

Good Lord.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

Ah, the damage 'just a little knowledge' can do.

A higher wattage speaker can take more signal before it falls apart.....thats all.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

I love the scientific terms being thrown around like these ones:
hallway to the hotdog
bottomless pit
bench pressing

Keep em coming.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

You know, the "buddy's" theory isn't a bad description of what happens when a solid-state amp tries to drive an impedance that's way too low for it.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

Little Pigbacon said:
You know, the "buddy's" theory isn't a bad description of what happens when a solid-state amp tries to drive an impedance that's way too low for it.
Click to expand...

For that scenario, it is somewhat descriptive, but not for the reasons originally intended.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

assquatch20 said:
Kinda sorry I asked.
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Don't worry dude, you might get a bit of ribbing but no one is meaning any malice by any of it. Its how we all learn and we've all either been told or even believed stupid stuff. At the very beginning of playing guitar I had a friend tell me that if you put too many pedals in front of an amplifier that I would damage that amplifier so that's why you HAD to use the effects loop. Me being me decided to try it with another friend we pooled all our pedals together and ran 11 into the front of my little marshall microstack. Sounded like butt, didn't hurt the amp though.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

Correct ohms & highly efficient speakers will do just fine.

Sent from my LGMS330 using Tapatalk
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

Well, ya see, my "buddy" is actually my buddy. And a smart old guy. A good tech, even. Just not sound in the theoretical department, I suppose. We just swapped a Hammond OT into my old Skylark and he's a particularly cautious dude, I guess. I doubt he's gonna hear about this from me, though.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

Tell your buddy that wattage handling of a speaker is actually how much signal-induced heat the voice coil can handle before it literally cooks itself. It's not harder to push signal to a higher wattage speaker. It just means that it won't blow up as easily with more wattage.

Old 20-watt Celestion G12M speakers (the ORIGINAL Greenbacks) had a paper voicecoil former and it would literally spark and catch fire if you hit it with too many watts.
 
Re: Do big speakers hurt little output transformers?

assquatch20 said:
Well, ya see, my "buddy" is actually my buddy. And a smart old guy. A good tech, even. Just not sound in the theoretical department, I suppose. We just swapped a Hammond OT into my old Skylark and he's a particularly cautious dude, I guess. I doubt he's gonna hear about this from me, though.
Click to expand...

I don't think anybody was trying to put you down any, more than just astonished by the advice you got. The only potentially dangerous thing about situations like that in my experience, is its often how a lot of misinformation gets spread, and once it does, it's super hard to correct. Its also often more common than not for people who have been operating as techies for years to not really have as firm of a grasp on what they are doing as they should. I can't count the number of times I have had to fix work by otherwise reputable techs, some who are even running successful amp companies now. A lot of times the argument you hear from these guys is the popular defensive "I have been doing this for x many years, so I know what I'm doing/I've never heard of that" song and dance. You can still not know what you are doing after 40 years.

It sounds like he had your best interest at heart though.
 
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