Hey Fender Forum,

So I'm thinking about making an external speaker pine cab for my Fender HRD. I replaced the stock speaker with a 12" Celestion V30, 16 ohms. The cab will be for a 1 x 12. I had an idea of having the cab speaker break up before the Celestion one. Any ideas on how to make this possible or if it will even work? I figured since the speaker I have now is very clean, it would really fill it out if I had one that broke up sooner.

Sorry I'm having a tough time understanding.
So where is the V30 now in the HRD cab or in the external cab?
And the external cab will have the former stock speaker of the HRD?

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-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Right now, fender HRD has the Celestion V30, 16 ohms in it. I'm going to make an external speaker for my setup. I wasn't planning on using the stock speaker. For the cab, I want to put in a 12" speaker that will break up before the V30. I was asking for some recommendations on speakers that would break up a little bit before my V30. Sorry about that!
Thanks in advance!

Sounds like a great way to burn up an OT.

Good luck with that.



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

+1 I wouldn't do it.

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"Where would rock and roll be without feedback?"

I've heard about that but I don't understand why it would hurt the amp? If the speaker can handle all of the sound that the amp is putting out, why would that hurt the head? I know that if the head was 8 ohms and the speaker was 4, that would kill the speaker in a second. But since the speaker has less resistance than the head, why would that hurt the OT? What am I missing?

If you want to get uber-technical about it (which I always do), its not the clipped signal that damages the speaker. The speaker could care less what you're putting through it, as long as it doesn't exceed its Xmax and Xlim properties, as well as its thermal limits.

The problem with running a small amp is that you're often required to run the amp at its full output potential which is often FAR beyond the truly useable realm of the amp. Running in this fashion can cause massive power transients which result in huge amounts of wattage pumping into your speakers. This results in the possibility of pushing your speakers up to and/or past their Xmax and Xlim properties.

With a larger amp you don't run into this problem because you can run the amp at a much lower output and get the same wattage as the smaller amp running at a higher output. This increases headroom and reduces the chance of their being large speaker-eating power transients. More wattage = more better :p

The clipped signal thing has been widely disproven by countless audio engineers. By all accounts, the speaker doesn't care what the wave looks like, it only cares how much power is being pushed into the speaker.

I've always been perplexed how a clipped signal made by the amp damages the speakers but a clipped signal from a distortion pedal (Big Muff for example) doesn't?

Once again: By all accounts, the speaker doesn't care what the wave looks like, it only cares how much power is being pushed into the speaker.

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"Where would rock and roll be without feedback?"

You're missing a basic grasp of electronics, specifically how current flows.

Think of it as water. Suppose you have a water pump with a flow rate of 60 gpm and an output fitting of 4" in diameter. But you don't have a 4" hose, you've only got a 2" hose. So you use a 4" to 2" reducer coupler to mate the hose to the pump. The hose may be rated for 60 gpm but the reducer causes back-flow to churn in reverse due to the restrictive nature of the coupler. This back flow eddy re-enters the pump's impeller chamber and creates turbulence and resistance which decreases the efficiency of the impeller and over the long term will prematurely wear out the bearings in the pump motor. Your "pump" is your amp, designed to deliver its rated power into an 8-ohm load. And your 16-ohm speaker is the "reducer coupler".

Got it?

Quiz on Friday.



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Okay so in other words - the amp is working too hard to try to fill all of the space that my speaker has. It doesn't hurt the speaker because the speaker can handle the amp's output. But the amp wants to "fill up the speaker" and it doesn't have the power to do so. Tonally, what are the differences then between using my current 16 ohm and the 8 ohm that I should switch it out for? And also, can I just splice the speaker cable and throw in an 8 ohm resistor?
And I love getting technical. haha

Can you spell "clueless"?

Find yourself a new hobby.

Then change your log-in to something more appropriate.

"MrLionelguy" has a nice ring to it......



Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

No, there is no space to fill.
Your amp needs an 8 ohm speaker period. You have an impedance mismatch. You're not hurting the speaker you're hurting your amp. Get it? The amp should have an 8 ohm speaker and your extension cab should be 8 ohms also. Another work around is a Weber Z Matcher.
Did you read the instruction manual???

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

As far as pressure goes, it's called Delta P. Pressure Differential. Turbulence and resistance can be equated to "Eddy's" in flow and if I remember correctly, measured in Reynolds Numbers?

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Gary

Nice try Arjay! You know the saying about the horse and the water, but in this case I'm not sure the horse even got to the pond!

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"Where would rock and roll be without feedback?"

Maybe adding fuel to the fire, would this work for "Stratguy?"
(This link is Just to use as an Example)
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... QgodcnEAog

So any change in what the power rating is supposed to be will hurt the amp since it was made to be even around the board. I should probably change the OT before it goes bad then since I've had that speaker in there for a few months now. I'd rather be safe then sorry - especially since I don't have a backup amp or even a backup guitar because I'm a college student that refuses to play out of crap equiptment. I'm still learning this stuff.



As much as I appreciate the detail of it, I admit that Arnold's post was over my head. I understand how the speaker works but I didn't accurately understand how the wattage affected the amp.


When I said space I didn't mean literal space of the speaker but space within the chain. Let's go back to what Retro was saying - the way I had originally viewed it was that instead of using the 4" to the 2" coupler, I saw it a 4" going into a 6" because I figured since the impedance was lower on speaker that it would be fine because there would be no "back flow" created. So what I meant was the diameter difference between the 4 and the 6 but it doesn't work like that.


No, I bought it used. I retubed it, set the bias and called it a day. Little did I know eh?

And it's "stratguy" not "ampguy." If it isn't evident, I've been trying to find the means to learn the basics so I can drink from the water/pond whatever you want to call it - but more importantly that I don't become one of those musicians that lets everyone else take care of all his equipment without any regard to what he's actually got. I can't stand when I talk to an accomplished musician and they're answer to "what kind of speakers are in your Deluxe Re?" is "Ummmm, I think they're original speakers but I don't really know..." or "Was that a Dorian #4 scale you used?" - "I don't know any notes on the guitar, dude."

The reason I wanted to make the extra cab in the first place was because there's a song I do with my band where I play a Csus4/F with all of the strings ringing out and my amp sounded like it was falling apart. This confused me because on other songs the amp would sound great. My theory was that the speaker diaphragm was moving too much from the low notes of the chord, to produce the highs effectively. So what would be the fix? A new amp or another cab to split the work. I now know that its most likely the speaker I have in there to begin with that's creating too much "back flow."

Thank you for the comments everyone. Some were appreciated more than others but nonetheless thanks, you guys were a great deal of help.