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Weird advice from Line 6

Started by aoresteen, November 08, 2011, 07:11:18 PM

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aoresteen

I want to replace the speakers in a Line 6 Spider III 15 and a Line 6 Spider IV 30 but could not find what the speaker ratings are for either amp. I plan on building an external cabinet with multiple speakers for the amps.

I called Line 6 and asked them what speaker load will the amps handle? The person helping me had to speak with a technician and after being placed on hold I was told that both amps come with 4 ohm speakers so the amps can handle a 4 ohm load.

Here's the strange piece:

I was told not to use a speaker whose *power* rating was greater than the amps power rating (not the impedance rating). The Spider IV 30 is a 30 watt amp so I should not use a speaker that can handle more than 30 watts i.e. a 50 watt 4ohm speaker. Using a higher power RATED speaker can damage the amp per Line 6.

I have never heard of such a thing. I run 50 watt amps into cabinets that are rated for 100 watts all the time with no ill effects (yes impedance is matched - 8 ohm cab to 8 ohm amp output).

How can using a speaker that has a higher *power* rating than the amp damage the amp even when you have proper impedance matching?

Is there something different with Line 6 amps that makes this true?


I'm confused!
Tony Oresteen
Peavey Bandit Silver Strip, Revolution 112
Marshall MOSFET Lead 100 3210
Squier SP10
Newnan, GA

Enzo

There is absolutely nothing different about Line6 amps.  Look inside and see the same power amp IC used in any number of other brands and models.

I cannot imagine why one should have to find 30 watt speakers.  What would they expect us to do if them made a 5 watt amp, find 5 watt speakers?

Evil_Food

You can't damage the amp with speakers rated at higher power.

You didn't speak directly to the technician, did you? There's nothing to support such a claim and I would disregard it. It must be a misunderstanding between technician and support guy.

As far as impedances go, there's no impedance matching for modern solid state amps (it's just pointless and expensive). If the amp says 8 ohms, that means plugging in a 4ohm speaker can overload it, which will sound nasty after certain power output. If it's got separate outputs for different speaker impedances than I would suspect current feedback and you would need to match the labels.


aoresteen

Quote from: Evil_Food on November 08, 2011, 08:02:26 PM
You can't damage the amp with speakers rated at higher power.

You didn't speak directly to the technician, did you? There's nothing to support such a claim and I would disregard it. It must be a misunderstanding between technician and support guy.

As far as impedances go, there's no impedance matching for modern solid state amps (it's just pointless and expensive). If the amp says 8 ohms, that means plugging in a 4ohm speaker can overload it, which will sound nasty after certain power output. If it's got separate outputs for different speaker impedances than I would suspect current feedback and you would need to match the labels.

No the guy on the phone put me on hold while HE went and spoke with the technician.  So what I got was second hand.  But he was very adament about it and was carefull to explain it to me TWICE to make sure I 'got it'.
Tony Oresteen
Peavey Bandit Silver Strip, Revolution 112
Marshall MOSFET Lead 100 3210
Squier SP10
Newnan, GA

joecool85

Quote from: aoresteen on November 09, 2011, 10:27:37 AM
No the guy on the phone put me on hold while HE went and spoke with the technician.  So what I got was second hand.  But he was very adament about it and was carefull to explain it to me TWICE to make sure I 'got it'.

He was still wrong.  No harm will come from hooking up a speaker with a power handling capacity of 100w, or 1000w or even more.  Just match the impedance.
Life is what you make it.
Still rockin' the Dean Markley K-20X
thatraymond.com

aoresteen

Quote from: joecool85 on November 09, 2011, 02:15:03 PM
Quote from: aoresteen on November 09, 2011, 10:27:37 AM
No the guy on the phone put me on hold while HE went and spoke with the technician.  So what I got was second hand.  But he was very adament about it and was carefull to explain it to me TWICE to make sure I 'got it'.

He was still wrong.  No harm will come from hooking up a speaker with a power handling capacity of 100w, or 1000w or even more.  Just match the impedance.

Thanks.  That's what I've done since 1969.....

I've emailed the Line 6 product manager to see what he says.
Tony Oresteen
Peavey Bandit Silver Strip, Revolution 112
Marshall MOSFET Lead 100 3210
Squier SP10
Newnan, GA

jcgss77

Have you heard back from Line6 yet?  I am curious to hear what they have to say from a technical standpoint about this. 

I do think, however, that since you are designing a speaker box for these amps, that you should experiment with lower wattage speakers than what the amps put out.  I have found that going with a lower wattage speaker can color your sound in interesting ways, that aren't always unfavorable.  Of course, it all depends on what sounds good to you.  A lot of people actually use a total speaker wattage of half of the amp output.

J M Fahey

QuoteA lot of people actually use a total speaker wattage of half of the amp output.
Only if you play at home, at 3AM, and your wife is sleeping next door. ;)

vivalabasss

i have a line 6 75watt and everything on it works cept the input jack. do you know where i can get a picture of the insides? :-[

J M Fahey

No, but you don't really need it.
Your problem will probably be visible to the naked eye (cracked solder or tracks) or detected by poking with a piece of wood or plastic (worn/bent jack contacts, which make good contact again when pushed).
Start by looking from real close with a good light, resolder contacts, and try to buy a replacement jack, pick a similar one from some online catalog.
Not much more than that.

spud

Quote from: jcgss77 on November 13, 2011, 03:15:05 PM
Have you heard back from Line6 yet?  I am curious to hear what they have to say from a technical standpoint about this. 

I do think, however, that since you are designing a speaker box for these amps, that you should experiment with lower wattage speakers than what the amps put out.  I have found that going with a lower wattage speaker can color your sound in interesting ways, that aren't always unfavorable.  Of course, it all depends on what sounds good to you.  A lot of people actually use a total speaker wattage of half of the amp output.

:lmao:

Good one! 

Wait, unless your serious then all I have to say is:  WOW!  Oh, and please clarify.   Would the "color" include the sound of the speaker self destructing?  I must have been living in ignorance as I've always understood the rule of thumb is that the speaker should be rated for double the amps rated power.  I wonder if I've been doing it wrong all these years...

Jim

erokit

#11
I am guessing the advice to not use a speaker with higher power rating has to do with sensitivity and volume. I loaded a 10w Fender Champ 12 with a Celestion 25w greenback once and it cut the volume (it was the same impedance).

Chech out joecol85's thread on speaker sensitivity . . .
http://www.ssguitar.com/index.php?topic=1968.0

spud

Erokit,

Yes, I checked out the link it's talking primarily about sensitivity and doesn't address the wattage issue I'm talking about.  I'm purely talking about the idea that your speaker should have a rating of double the RMS rating of the amp.  Even better would be double the max output (but then we'd all have to get full stacks.)  :o   But if both speakers are the same sensitivity, why would you want to risk blowing out the speaker by using one with half the power handling?  Really power rating of the speaker is only to ensure that your speaker won't be fried by the output of the amp.  However, there are lots of examples of manufacturers putting barely adequately rated speakers in their gear.  My Marshall amp came with an Eminence OEM speaker rated at 80w - I consider it to be low in terms of power handling as the amp is a 80w amp.  That's based on my rule of thumb being speaker power rating should be double the amps output rating.  It's a SS (MOSFET) output stage & hybrid pre-amp.  So I would consider a 150-160 watt speaker to be the "proper stock equipment" for this amplifier but obviously that would have cost Marshall more so they opted for the "barely adequate" IMO.  For example, if I were to crank it to the max (which I have never done, BTW) I would probably blow the stock Eminence speaker - hit a E power chord or do a Pete Towsend windmill on one!   8)  I bet that would kill it if not seriously damage it.   

Recently I started using a ext cab built by Jet City (Soldano "entry level" line) that has a 75w "Eminence built for Jet City" in it - it's rated at 16 ohm.  Using the calculations from my other thread, it works out that the output is about 50w due to the increased load.  First, it sounds way better and comparable in terms of volume so it must have a little better sensitivity considering it's higher impedance (16 vs 8 ohms of the stock spkr).  I had expected it to cut more of the volume but due to (what I suspect is) the slight increase in sensitivity (I have no specs on this speaker), I'm getting pretty close to the same output volume at the same knob setting.  I'm using it because I don't want to shell out for more gear at this point in time and I'm making do - otherwise, I'd get a higher sensitivity speaker rated similarly or maybe even higher - I think that would give me even more volume and a safer operational buffer (at 100 or 120w power handling).  I'd get 16 ohms since that lowers the effective output the amp but coupled with even more sensitive speakers would give me better volume (slightly). 

Jim

mexicanyella

I'm one of those guys who tends to like the signal to be fairly clean, but loud enough to get close to the limits of what the speaker can reproduce...I like the coloration imposed by speakers at their limits. For electric guitar, anyway.

But I wonder how much Marshall was thinking about that in designing a Valvestate combo. And I REALLY wonder about that kind of thing in a Line 6 amp; I'd think you'd want dead-neutral amplification of preamp modeling magic in that case...?