speakers in parrallel

[pfloyd_is_god]

I'm building my self a guitar amp, with two 12", 8 Ohm, 80 W Celestions. Should I put them in parrallel and run them off the same amp, or should I use a seperate amp for each?. Using two amps will let me run it in stereo mode, which many guitar amp manufacturers seem to offer, although I dont really understand the logic behind this. To me it would seem that putting two speakers in parrallel would adversly affect the sound of the setup. Any insight is apreciated.

[BillFitzmaurice]

You've already answered your own question. If you want to run stereo use separate power amps. If you are going mono run the two speakers in parallel. If you go stereo put the two speakers in separate boxes so you can separate them for stereo imaging. If you go mono put the two speakers in one box, vertically aligned. Do not place the speakers in one box side by side; that arrangement seriously degrades horizontal dispersion.

[pfloyd_is_god]

Well are there no concideratioins I need to take if im goign parrallel? To be honest it's unlikely i would ever use the amp in stereo, as a guitar is mono. However it would seem that two seperate amps would give beter distortion pwerofrmance.

[BillFitzmaurice]

guitar is mono

Yes, it is, but effects are not. In fact, without stereo effects Floyd wouldn't sound near as interesting as it does. Distortion is not a consideration. Without distortion Floyd, and every other band with a guitar, would be pretty mundane, with the possible exception of surf music, and even Dick Dale has been known to take it over the edge. And speaking of the Edge, without stereo effects and distortion he and Bono never would have made it out of Dublin.

[pfloyd_is_god]

Well I'm not talking about distortion as in overdrive distortion; I'm talking about distortion in terms of amplifier performance. I’m going with a solid state power amp anyway, so any overdrive is going to happen at the line level, using 12ax7’s. Notwithstanding guitar effects and the obvious requirement for higher current amps, are there not any considerations to be accounted for when running speakers in parallel? For instance if I were building a mono hi-fi amp, and were using two speakers, would it be better to have separate amps or one amp with the speakers in parallel? Let’s assume phase cancellation wasn’t an issue.

Yes, it is, but effects are not. In fact, without stereo effects Floyd wouldn't sound near as interesting as it does. Distortion is not a consideration. Without distortion Floyd, and every other band with a guitar, would be pretty mundane, with the possible exception of surf music, and even Dick Dale has been known to take it over the edge. And speaking of the Edge, without stereo effects and distortion he and Bono never would have made it out of Dublin.

Well as far as I know, Gilmour used DR-103's which are mono; although I'm sure he had plenty of after effects taking advantage of the stereo thing.

Without distortion Floyd, and every other band with a guitar, would be pretty mundane, with the possible exception of surf music,

Well, no one listens to surf music.