Off Topic Differing speaker wattages

[Stevie]

Hi all,

I would appreciate some advice on the impact of mixing two speakers with different wattages, one is 25 watt the other is 60 watt with the amp being 20 watt? I have a Blackstar HT 20 combo with the Celestion rocket 50. On its own the sound was ok from the combo but i teamed it up with a Greenback in a 1*12 cab and i'm now more happier with the outcome. What issues do i have by mixing?

Thanks,

 

[DrKev]

Provided they are the same impedance you should be OK. The FAQ on the Celestion website advises against mixing speakers of different impedance.

 

[Fun111]

Yeah it's impedance matching that matters, so you aren't hurting anything.

In brief, all you have to take into account is what the ratings mean. the 20W speaker rating means that 20W of power is the point after which the speaker will distort, and the voice coil will probably heat up to the point at which it starts to damage other parts of the speaker. Same with most speaker ratings. Therefore, if you're mixing speakers of different values, I believe you multiply the rating of the lowest wattage speaker times to number of speakers to get the maximum safe power handling.

So if you have a 20 watt and a 50 watt speaker, assuming the speakers will both get the same power, your safe power handling is 40W, not 70W, but that's double what you'll be putting out at high volumes anyway. This is assuming the voice coils have similar DC Resistance, but is the safest assumption.

Somebody else may be able to give a more accurate assessment.