New speaker arrived but....

rlw

My new to me Weber speaker has turned up and I will fit it into my little tweed clone later on.  The point of buying a replacement was to get something that sounder nicer when breaking up than the fitted Celestion.

That, of course, is delusional as I struggle to be in the same room as the amp when it's turned up very loud and, even then, I'm not sure the speaker is breaking up, although the amp clearly is.  And I can't really play at that level for long as you can hear it down the street...........

ICBM

Why would you want the speaker to break up? It sounds shit.

"Speaker breakup" is not what most people think it is at all. The cone will in fact start to distort and add harmonics at quite low volume levels, and this is what is *technically* referred to as "cone break up" - you'll be getting that if the amp is starting to overdrive, although you won't notice because it is very progressive, and sounds nice. The "break up" you get when the cone is pushed too hard and can't follow the input signal properly sounds like a blown speaker, and you *will* notice that!

ecc83

Take ICBM's words to heart. EVERYONE! Celestion themselves say that their speakers do NOT need to be punished to sound good. In any event, the 'Guitar Speaker' is an appalling thing! The cone is very light (for say a 12" woofer) and the suspension extremely stiff with very little excursion. By contrast a 12" Hi Fi  woofer* would have a more massive and stiffer cone, much greater excursion, +&- >6mm , and a free air resonance of around 20Hz. The lowest GS resonance 12 I know of is the Greenback 'low res' jobbie at a non-fi, honky 55Hz! Most are at 70Hz or so.

This all adds up to...Distortion! Guitar speakers are very non-linear at even low, ~1W levels.

You will read people say "the speaker needs to move some air" Bollox mate. They just need an excuse to go loud!

*Which were common for the best Hi Fi back in the day (still got a Wharfedale RS12DD ) but technology has moved on and even VERY good monitors rarely have bigger than 8" woofers.

Dave.

Sassafras

Whenever I've induced speaker cones to break up it's never been pleasant.
There's also a risk of damaging the cones which happened a few times in my youth.

rlw

OK.  I'm very happy to stand corrected on this.  I shall report back anyway.

Bygone_Tones

You just have to find the sweet spot for the particular speaker. Each speaker is different.

I do not agree that speakers sound the same or 'as good' played quiet as they do with some muscle behind them. Complete nonsense. They sound fuller and more toneful with the correct amount of power going into them. However I do agree that you should not push them far beyond the sweet spot so that they break up horribly and start to distort and rattle. Find the middle ground.

rlw

Fitted the new speaker and it's a big improvement.  Now playing with settings but at about 8 on the volume control the amp starts to overdrive nicely and I can control overall volume with the attenuator so it stays neighbour friendly.

ecc83

Bygone_Tones said:

You just have to find the sweet spot for the particular speaker. Each speaker is different.

I do not agree that speakers sound the same or 'as good' played quiet as they do with some muscle behind them. Complete nonsense. They sound fuller and more toneful with the correct amount of power going into them. However I do agree that you should not push them far beyond the sweet spot so that they break up horribly and start to distort and rattle. Find the middle ground.

Loudness is very subjective but "nonsense" is insulting. The effect of playing loudly* causes changes to your perception of the sound. There are Equal Loudness Contours (old Fletcher/Munson curves) to consider but also the psychological effect of adrenalin that loud noise provokes.

That you cannot put a 2x4x12 200W stack in a fag packet is well known. Trying to duplicate such a sound at conversational levels ~70dB SPL is doomed to failure but you really do NOT need to imperil the windows.

* I am talking about loudness levels of around 90dB at the player's ear and thus input powers of less than one watt for the majority of guitar speakers. 90db SPL is louder than most 'domestic' gear can go, an FSTV for example and would be quite annoying to others in the house.

Dave.