Small speakers

[Edutainment]

I'm making a Little Gem amp from runoffgroove.com and don't know where to get good speakers. It says any speaker will work but it doesn't sound good without a speaker designed for guitar. Where can I get a small (I'm making it to be a portable amp) inexpensive speaker that will sound good in a guitar amp, preferably offline?

Thanks.

[RIFF WRATH]

check out the Q-components thread....Eminence line shows smallest as a 10", but I suggest you call, competent people and very knowledgeable.
no affiliation , just a very satisfied customer.
cheers
Gerry

[Edutainment]

I'm looking for something closer to 3 inches. I'm not too picky but I want it to sound decent.

[Paul]

I'm looking for something closer to 3 inches. I'm not too picky but I want it to sound decent.

Go to value village and buy some 50 cent clock radios. Use the speakers from them.

I believe that "3 inch speaker" and "sound decent" are mutually exclusive, but you may have luck that I can't imagine. They make these: (http://www.smokeyamps.com/Smokey_Pages/smokey.html)

http://www.smokeyamps.com/Smokey_Pages/smokey_images/Bluepoly.jpg
..with a 2" speaker, so anything is possible.

[Edutainment]

I believe that "3 inch speaker" and "sound decent" are mutually exclusive, but you may have luck that I can't imagine.

You're probably right but I think the speakers from this crappy Electrohome sound system I have are probably better than the ones in a clock radio so I think I'll use that. The amp's supposed to be 1/2 a watt, and apparently it's capable of driving a 2x12 cab so I assume it will have no problems with this 4ohm 15W speaker?

[RIFF WRATH]

got to thinking about your situation.........why not go the route i did........I put a pos, I think 5", speaker in my reworked amp....and had a 3 way jack (not sure of the correct terninology)installed by Wild Bill.......in the back, so there is always a load on the amp in case it accidently gets turned on , and then you just hook up to a secondary cabinet, say a 1X12........when you plug in the external jack it disconnects the signal to the small pos speaker.
just a thought....if you can find out anything about old electrohome tube recordplayers, I have one I may be trashing, and it has small speakers?????
cheers
Gerry

[Edutainment]

No this is a newer home theatre sound system type thing but it's useless. Electrohome no longer manufactures their own stuff.

[RIFF WRATH]

I have a going nowhere thread re: my old record player.....it's tube driven....I may trash it, and see what it has for speakers, they are small, but electrohome used to make good stuff years ago???......I'll see if I get any response by the first of the week, and go from there???
cheers
Gerry

[Geek]

I have some nice vintage AlNiCo speakers in the 5 - 6" range if you want a neat tone :smile:


I have a going nowhere thread re: my old record player.....it's tube driven....I may trash it, and see what it has for speakers...

Send the tube guts to Geek for proper disposal :DevilGuitar: :wink:

[greco]

I have some nice vintage AlNiCo speakers in the 5 - 6" range if you want a neat tone :smile:

Send the tube guts to Geek for proper disposal :DevilGuitar: :wink:

I purchased an ALNiCo speaker form Geek. Great fellow to do business with.

I'm really enjoying my AlNiCo..very articaulate, warm, vintage sound.

Good luck with the speaker.

Dave

[mhammer]

I made myself a little 2W LM380-powered battery-powered (12V) amp that uses a 6.5" Pacer speaker from Marsland. It's in a chipboard cab (pics here: http://hammer.ampage.org/files/Miniamp.zip ) and that little sucker packs one helluva punch. Lots of bass.

The key is the cab. Many small-ish speakers can deliver decent bass and volume if you let them. The various low-wattage 8" full-range speakers used for ceiling PA that you can find in many places are actually decent sounding. Placed in a moderate-sized enclosure they can stretch a half watt a long way.

Check this place out for some bargoons: http://www.loudspeakers.ca/

[greco]

I made myself a little 2W LM380-powered battery-powered (12V) amp that uses a 6.5" Pacer speaker from Marsland. It's in a chipboard cab (pics here: http://hammer.ampage.org/files/Miniamp.zip ) and that little sucker packs one helluva punch. Lots of bass.

The key is the cab. Many small-ish speakers can deliver decent bass and volume if you let them. The various low-wattage 8" full-range speakers used for ceiling PA that you can find in many places are actually decent sounding. Placed in a moderate-sized enclosure they can stretch a half watt a long way.


Thanks for the link to the pics and schematic (& layout)...really enjoyed looking at them.

Cool looking amp.

Dave

[Edutainment]

How does wattage of a speaker come into play when putting one into an amp? I sort of know the basics of impedance but how does wattage affect it, 'cause I have a 15W 4ohm speaker, and a couple 3W 8ohm speakers. I figured I'd use the 8ohm one.

I have a going nowhere thread re: my old record player.....it's tube driven....I may trash it, and see what it has for speakers, they are small, but electrohome used to make good stuff years ago???......I'll see if I get any response by the first of the week, and go from there???
cheers
Gerry

I've heard their old stuff was good but that was probably before my time. What are you thinking of doing with 'em?

Geek: If I had a bigger budget, I'd consider it.

[RIFF WRATH]

regarding the record player speakers........I haven't had any sucess sourcing parts, and probably will dismantle the unit...it's really a shame......will pull the speakers, and maybe switch one with the one in my reworked pine tube amp as a safety "load" and will probably pull the tube chassis??? as mentioned, was hoping for a response on the other thread before I needlessly wreck the unit........I have been around for a long time...lol...but this is the first tube record player I have ever seen...as a kid they were all solid state......I'll make a decision, early next week.

[Ti-Ron]

I purchased an ALNiCo speaker form Geek. Great fellow to do business with.

I'm really enjoying my AlNiCo..very articaulate, warm, vintage sound.

Good luck with the speaker.

Dave

+1 on that! Geek is the guy to deal with!!!!

[mhammer]

How does wattage of a speaker come into play when putting one into an amp? I sort of know the basics of impedance but how does wattage affect it, 'cause I have a 15W 4ohm speaker, and a couple 3W 8ohm speakers. I figured I'd use the 8ohm one.
The wattage rating is essentially a description of how much current the speaker coil can take for more than an instant before it turns into a fuse on you and goes poof! just like the not-even-as-skinny wire inside of a fuse.

The wattage says very little about how "loud" the speaker is. It's loudness is really more related to its size, and particularly the SPL rating at 1W. If a speaker is rated at 96db with 1W feeding it and a mic placed 1 metre away, it is twice as "loud" as another speaker with a 93db rating under the same conditions. Speakers with higher SPL levels are said to be more "efficient". The same voice-coil married to a cone size that is able to move more air will generally result in greater loudness and efficiency.

Although there are certainly many exceptions to this, those speakers with higher wattage ratings tend to be a little more sluggish than those with lower wattage ratings. This is partly because the tendency of a speaker coil to turn into a fuse and go poof! is a function of its movement and the degree of friction-related heat produced. If it is easily moving great distances back and forth at high speed, it is doing exactly what you did in scout camp to start a fire, and you should expect the same result.

If the cone is big and heavy and stiff, it will generally be better able to withstand larger currents passing through the voice-coil. The corollary of that is that it is designed to resist movement a bit and be somewhat unresponsive at lower volumes and only hits its "linear range" (which we can think of as being like cruising speed) when a couple of watts are fed into it. That's one of the reasons why many people are enamoured of things like 4 x 10 configurations of low-wattage speakers. The low-wattage units have speedier more responsive cones/coils, but having 4 of them divides up all the current from the amp such that no single speaker has to be able to withstand all of it.

The amp always needs to be able to supply current to the rated load of the speaker. Some amps are very comfortable seeing loads as low as 2 ohms on their output, while others get a little uncomfortable with anything less than 4 ohms. The amount of current that can be provided increases as the load imposed by the speaker decreases. Because that results in a supposed increase in wattage, many folks are impressed with that and feel that they are somehow benefitting substantially from a lower impedance speaker. Not necessarily. In theory, you need approximately 10x the wattage to produce double the perceived loudness in the same speaker. So, putting together what I noted in earlier parts of this post, if you had a choice of using a 4 vs 8-ohm version of a speaker and elected to use the 4 ohm version to ostensibly double the potential amp output, you would not see nearly as much loudness benefit as if you elected to go with a different 8R speaker that had a SPL rating that was 2db higher.

Finally, the wattage rating refers to how much continuous signal the voice coil can take. Unless you feed the amp a seriously clipped hot signal and leave the controls dimed, it is unlikely you will provide that sort of signal very often. If the speaker is rated at 3W and the amp is rated at max 8W output, you will only exceed the rating of the speaker for brief moments now and then. Simply keeping the output level on the amp dialed back a bit will allow the speaker to last a long long time. Of course if the speaker is rated at 3W and the amp is rated at 22W, AND you tend to be a speed-metal player who uses a searing fuzz all the time, that speaker may not last very long.

[RIFF WRATH]

another well thought out post, thanks for the explanation....and have a nice weekend!!!!!