Mixing speaker wattages in one 4x12

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Greg_L

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I'm seeing conflicting reports and don't understand enough about electricity myself to know, so what say you guys?

Ex: One 4x12 cab.

Two 16 ohm Celestion G12T-75's @ 75w each
Two 16 ohm Celestion Greenbacks @ 25w each

The cab is a splittable stereo cab, but I never use it that way. I always run it as a 16 ohm mono cab.

Is total wattage for the cab the sum of the speakers, or is it 4 x the lowest wattage?

Will this cab now be rated at 200 watts, or 100 watts? :confused:
 
So regardless of what combo of wattages you use, it's just the lowest wattage times the number of speakers? Interesting.



I found a guy on CL that wants to trade his whole Fender Greenback 4x12 for a Marshall G12T-75 4x12. I offered him a two-for-two speaker only trade and he accepted.
 
Cool. Always wanted to try the Greenbacks but never got around to it.
For some reason I thought you used those already.
 
fat_fleet said:
Cool. Always wanted to try the Greenbacks but never got around to it.
For some reason I thought you used those already.
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I used to use a JCM800 and a 4x12 with Greenback clones in it. I'm not sure what they were. It was my bandmates rig and he kept it at the practice space. At the time I wasn't that interested. He just said "they're Greenback clones" and I left it at that. He's since traded or sold that cab away and the head is back at his house. I got all my own shit now because I was sick of hauling recording gear to the practice space to record guitar tracks. My current cab is a 1960a with G12T-75s. I like em a lot, but I don't mic all 4 of them. Greenbacks sound killer and have a similar sensitivity rating as the 75's, so they should play well together in the same cab. I was just wondering about the big wattage difference.

I also have 2x12 with Vintage 30's in it, and I like it okay, but those speakers are a totally different animal and at 8 ohms/100db sensitivity each, I can't put em in my 4x12. I'm not 100% crazy about the V30's. I seem to like them with other amps, but not totally with mine. I like midrange, but Marshall + V30 is like an assault of midrange.

Ultimately this all for recording options only. I don't play guitar live. Having 3 really nice speaker options to mic can't be a bad thing, right?
 
Greg_L said:
I'm not 100% crazy about the V30's.
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I'm kind of a speaker retard, but I have the old G12H30/V30 combo in my 2x12 and I never mic the V30 because I just haven't been able to get a sound I liked with it... too harsh or something. It might have to do with my setup, I don't know.

I want to try other speakers but don't really know where to start. I watched the speaker shootout vids in the tone thread a couple times but, not surprisingly, things sound different in my basement.
 
The wattage is a measurement of how much power/heat the speaker can dissipate. If all the speakers are the same impedance, the power from the amp will be distributed equally among the speakers. That's why you can only feed it four times the lowest wattage.

Mind you, you shouldn't have a problem running that cabinet with a 100 watt Marshall. When was the last time you had the amp dimed for any real length of time?
 
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fat_fleet said:
I'm kind of a speaker retard, but I have the old G12H30/V30 combo in my 2x12 and I never mic the V30 because I just haven't been able to get a sound I liked with it... too harsh or something. It might have to do with my setup, I don't know.

I want to try other speakers but don't really know where to start. I watched the speaker shootout vids in the tone thread a couple times but, not surprisingly, things sound different in my basement.
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I feel the same about my V30's. I think they're great for true cleans and leads, but just banging overdriven powerchords through them, which is 99% of my style, sounds goofy to me. They're not smooth at all.
 
Farview said:
Mind you, you shouldn't have a problem running that cabinet with a 100 watt Marshall. When was the last time you had the amp dimed for any real length of time?
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Truly dimed? About a week ago. :D

Really though I never record it dimed. My head is a 100w master volume head and I think it sounds best at around 6 or 7 through the G12T-75's. So it's not kicking out full power all the time.
 
they've already told ya' but 4x the lowest power speaker and the specific reason would be that if all speakers are the same impedance, they all get 1/4th of the power.

So IF you had, say, a 200 watt head .... the greenbacks would each be getting 50 watts which would be deleterious to their functioning. :D


I like V30's .... maybe I've got something to trade ya' for 'em.
 
Lt. Bob said:
they've already told ya' but 4x the lowest power speaker and the specific reason would be that if all speakers are the same impedance, they all get 1/4th of the power.

So IF you had, say, a 200 watt head .... the greenbacks would each be getting 50 watts which would be deleterious to their functioning. :D


I like V30's .... maybe I've got something to trade ya' for 'em.
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I don't know, I think I'll keep em. Unless you got something really nice you wanna trade....like a Mosrite :D

V30's and/or 2x12's are a hot commodity right now. I can probably sell it local and get all of my money back, maybe more. I ordered it to my specs (Saints colors lol) and it's never left my house. It's literally in brand new condition. I think I wanna keep it though. I like it for my surfy cleans and leads. Can't hurt to have one more bullet for the gun, or something like that.

It's weird...V30's sound great for everyone else. The other guitarist in my band uses a V30 4x12 and it sounds fantastic. His head is more of a "modern" style high gain thing though. Very thick, very bassy, very "American" sounding, if ya know what I mean. It's an EL34 amp, but it has an almost Mesa-like voicing to it. To me anyway. He used to have a Mesa Road King and that thing was pure balls. Now he has the Diamond Nitrox, and it's more midrangey, but it's much closer to the Mesa than my Marshall. I run my head through that cab and it sounds completely different. I like my Marshall through the G12T-75's, and I've always wanted some Greenbacks. so hopefully this deal will work out.
 
Oh, and thanks for the info everyone.

4 x the lowest wattage speaker. Got it. I'll be safe mixing 2 Greenbacks in my cab.
 
Impedance figures are nominal and the actual impedance of any driver varies with frequency. If there happens to be a frequency at which one driver has a substantially lower impedance than the other drivers then it will draw significantly more than its share of power (1/4 for 4 drivers) at that frequency.

Normally that wouldn't be a big deal as you wouldn't be playing one frequency for an extended time at high volume, but if you're into channeling Jimi with high volume feedback it might be an issue.

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bouldersoundguy said:
Impedance figures are nominal and the actual impedance of any driver varies with frequency. If there happens to be a frequency at which one driver has a substantially lower impedance than the other drivers then it will draw significantly more than its share of power (1/4 for 4 drivers) at that frequency.

Normally that wouldn't be a big deal as you wouldn't be playing one frequency for an extended time at high volume, but if you're into channeling Jimi with high volume feedback it might be an issue.

800px-Znom3.png
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which is something I rearely see mentioned and even had a guy one time give me major grief over telling me, "I just measured the impedance and it's 8 ohms.

And some speakers can vary a LOT ..... going very low at certain freq's.
 
Greg_L said:
Um, yeah, I'm just gonna be bashing out some powerchords, so......:p
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it really gets interesting in ported cabinets where the tuning freq of the port affects that area of the speakers impedance.
 
Deal is done! I feel like I made out like a bandit on this deal. :D

I was worried these would be the chinese re-issues, but nope, made in jolly ol England!

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Ready to rock...
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After just a quick test run, so far I gotta say it's a definite and significant improvement. Not that I didn't like the cab before, I did, a lot, but the Greenbacks in there really fill in the midrange chunk that the G12T-75's sort of lacked. The cab has a more "vintage" crunch to it now. I'm definitely one step closer to my own tonal happy place. I knew all along Greenbacks were the answer. :)
 
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