The obvious choices are Celestion for a British sound, and Jensen for an "American" tone, but there are several good makers these days who actually make speakers in America instead of import them, and who charge less than the imported "name" brands. Eminence, Weber, and WGS all make excellent, yet inexpensive, guitar speakers.
I'd probably recommend this guy:
10? G10C - 75 watts | Warehouse Guitar Speakers
Looking on the "Dealers" page, I see WGS has distributors in Northern Europe, not sure how availability is in your area.
I'd probably recommend this guy:
10? G10C - 75 watts | Warehouse Guitar Speakers
Looking on the "Dealers" page, I see WGS has distributors in Northern Europe, not sure how availability is in your area.
Look for a small guitar speaker on sale such as this one: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=299-200
Alternatively, consider a vintage alnico driver such as a 6x9, 8, 10 or 12 inch paper cone console or movie projector driver on eBay or other auction sites.
These small tube practice amps can have great tone.
Regards,
Bob
Alternatively, consider a vintage alnico driver such as a 6x9, 8, 10 or 12 inch paper cone console or movie projector driver on eBay or other auction sites.
These small tube practice amps can have great tone.
Regards,
Bob
I think the website says 'spl 99 db', probably indicating that it is 99 db/w/m.
A 10 inch driver is a good size, but 8 - 12 inch is fine. For a 2w amp you don't need to be concerned with the power handing capability of the driver. Most any of them will be adequate. Primarily you are interested in the desired tone and spl needs. You want to consider drivers rated fairly low power so that the cone will break up within the power range of the amp. A wide range, 8 - 12 inch driver with a light paper cone, max power rating of 10-15w and sensitivity of 93 db/w/m or more will do nicely (with a 2w amp, the more the better, provided the tone is good). These used to be common, but are now only popular with guitarists. Weber (among others) makes these at quite reasonable prices (https://taweber.powweb.com/weber/). There is no sense in spending money on a high power driver for a 2w amp.
If expense is an issue, consider the Peavey driver currently on sale, or a vintage driver on one of the popular auction websites. You should be able to get a very nice driver from one of these sites for about $45 shipped.
Good luck,
Bob
A 10 inch driver is a good size, but 8 - 12 inch is fine. For a 2w amp you don't need to be concerned with the power handing capability of the driver. Most any of them will be adequate. Primarily you are interested in the desired tone and spl needs. You want to consider drivers rated fairly low power so that the cone will break up within the power range of the amp. A wide range, 8 - 12 inch driver with a light paper cone, max power rating of 10-15w and sensitivity of 93 db/w/m or more will do nicely (with a 2w amp, the more the better, provided the tone is good). These used to be common, but are now only popular with guitarists. Weber (among others) makes these at quite reasonable prices (https://taweber.powweb.com/weber/). There is no sense in spending money on a high power driver for a 2w amp.
If expense is an issue, consider the Peavey driver currently on sale, or a vintage driver on one of the popular auction websites. You should be able to get a very nice driver from one of these sites for about $45 shipped.
Good luck,
Bob
I have the Veteran 10", it is a medium efficiency speaker with a really nice sound. Nice top end and great on transits. Nice breakup, it even made a transistor amp sound good. A great home speaker but you may need a couple to play out with. I would go wit a 10" or a 12" just a lot more sound than a 8".
10" Veteran - 20 Watts | Warehouse Guitar Speakers
Also have the ET65, another good speaker but one that is more tighter in that the cone is beefier and the suspension is more dampened.
12" ET65 - 65 Watts | Warehouse Guitar Speakers
Heard good things about the G10C, probably will pick one up once I get some of my projects further along. Just not sure which amp to match it to yet.
At some point in time he will want to move up to a bigger amp, A 15-20W will take him far, not a bad idea to buy a speaker that can handle at least this. With that in mind the G10C is loud enough to handle a band situation.
10" Veteran - 20 Watts | Warehouse Guitar Speakers
Also have the ET65, another good speaker but one that is more tighter in that the cone is beefier and the suspension is more dampened.
12" ET65 - 65 Watts | Warehouse Guitar Speakers
Heard good things about the G10C, probably will pick one up once I get some of my projects further along. Just not sure which amp to match it to yet.
At some point in time he will want to move up to a bigger amp, A 15-20W will take him far, not a bad idea to buy a speaker that can handle at least this. With that in mind the G10C is loud enough to handle a band situation.
I'd suggest looking for either a vintage alnico speaker used, or get a Jensen Mod series - maybe the 10-35. That one runs about $35 new and should sound fine. I know small amps tend to be used with small speakers (like 8") in Champs, but they sound great with larger cone speakers in medium sized cabs.
Strongly agree with both suggestions (Jensen Mod Series and larger drivers). The best sound I have heard from a Champ was with a 12 inch alnico console driver (a copy or OEM of a Jensen P12R). Incredible tone and really loud too - nearly rock concert volume in the living room from an SE 6V6.
Regards,
Bob
Yes, for a valve amp the output impedance needs to match the speaker - and the transformer usually has multiple taps to select the speaker you want.
Historically, valve amps used 16 ohms - it was only after the advent of transistor amps that impedances fell to 8 ohms and even 4 ohms - it's one of the many reasons why transistor amps are vastly more efficient than valve ones.
Hi IZHAKKATZ,
Here I will quote myself from thread "Building new amp" for some Indian builders. Because I suppose that there to you is maybe similar situation with speaker shops, here is recommendation how to find appropriate guitar speaker or to build it from parts.
Quote:
"For speakers I can to recommend to you very good solutions specially for you in India, because anyway I build speakers, but specially because you can there to buy speakers, or buy parts to build speakers because India has many speaker shops. You can put in your guitar speaker box, speakers size from 8", to 12". It can be with one of such speaker, or I very recommend two (one next to other) - the best guitar box combination. Such speakers must be with full paper membrane (not rubber or similar surround), with something bigger but thin paper dust cap, with bigger magnet (recommended) with narrow magnet fissure where going voice coil, and thicker magnets poles. Voice coil should be on the kapton, paper or similar - non metal base (it could be aluminum but it's not so recommended). Voice coil should be normal two layer voice coil, not very high - just something higher than magnet pole pieces are thick (calculating only windings) - for good response in middle guitar frequencies. Spider should not be too big. Guitar speaker box you can build without strong requirements following the example of some well-known guitar speaker boxes, just with appropriate size for speaker which will go inside. Box can be closed or even very wide opened from the back side. Not use only MDF, or thick wood, it is for HI-FI boxes."
If you are maybe not able to build such speakers but you can buy such speakers parts, you can to order maybe to some speaker service there to assemble speakers. Also you may normal to try to find already assembled such speaker with this description. For good efficiency, but for such small amp you can put in box even smaller speakers than 8", look what I mentioned about speaker magnet, and also it is favorable to connect two or more speakers, all in parallel (here care about matching total impedance).
I hope, it can be useful to you. Regards,
Peter
Here I will quote myself from thread "Building new amp" for some Indian builders. Because I suppose that there to you is maybe similar situation with speaker shops, here is recommendation how to find appropriate guitar speaker or to build it from parts.
Quote:
"For speakers I can to recommend to you very good solutions specially for you in India, because anyway I build speakers, but specially because you can there to buy speakers, or buy parts to build speakers because India has many speaker shops. You can put in your guitar speaker box, speakers size from 8", to 12". It can be with one of such speaker, or I very recommend two (one next to other) - the best guitar box combination. Such speakers must be with full paper membrane (not rubber or similar surround), with something bigger but thin paper dust cap, with bigger magnet (recommended) with narrow magnet fissure where going voice coil, and thicker magnets poles. Voice coil should be on the kapton, paper or similar - non metal base (it could be aluminum but it's not so recommended). Voice coil should be normal two layer voice coil, not very high - just something higher than magnet pole pieces are thick (calculating only windings) - for good response in middle guitar frequencies. Spider should not be too big. Guitar speaker box you can build without strong requirements following the example of some well-known guitar speaker boxes, just with appropriate size for speaker which will go inside. Box can be closed or even very wide opened from the back side. Not use only MDF, or thick wood, it is for HI-FI boxes."
If you are maybe not able to build such speakers but you can buy such speakers parts, you can to order maybe to some speaker service there to assemble speakers. Also you may normal to try to find already assembled such speaker with this description. For good efficiency, but for such small amp you can put in box even smaller speakers than 8", look what I mentioned about speaker magnet, and also it is favorable to connect two or more speakers, all in parallel (here care about matching total impedance).
I hope, it can be useful to you. Regards,
Peter
Whereas I have found most guitar amps to be 8 ohms. The Fender Tweeds, Pro, Tremolux, Princeton were 8 ohms. The early Princeton was 3.2 ohms. The Twin was 4 ohms due to two 12"s, the Bassman at 2 ohms due to the four 8 ohm speakers. Ampegs normally ran 8 or 4 ohms, I think Marshalls and Voxs may have gone the 16 ohm route.
Transistor amps are not more efficient due to using 4 or 8 ohm speakers, not sure how you come to that conclusion.
The transformer in a tube amp is a matching device, as long as the turns ratio is right it does not mater what the speaker impedance is. All said I would go with 8 ohms.
If you don't mind throwing away some of your power, then its okay to have a mild impedance mismatch - if it turns out that your output transformer has a turns ratio that will deliver optimally into, say, a 16 ohm load and you use an 8 ohm speaker you'd probably be fine, but the amp won't be as loud as it would be with a 16 ohm speaker. If you're buying a new speaker, why wouldn't you go ahead and buy the right one for the job? If the mismatch is severe (say your OPT wants to see a 16 ohm load and you use a 4 ohm speaker) you also have a chance of damaging the amp if you play it full tilt.
It's not due to using 4 or 8 ohms, it's due to not using impedance matching.
Impedance matching provides maximum power transfer, but is NEVER more than 50% efficient - and in practice will always be somewhat less (50W in the speaker, 50W wasted in the amplifier, plus ?W in various losses?.
A solidstate amplifier, as it's not impedance matched, doesn't waste that 50% - so the 'same' amplifier might be 90W in the speaker, 10W wasted, plus the various other losses.
As far as efficiency goes, a transistor amp will be more efficient with a higher impedance speaker, but will have reduced output power.
With both kinds of amplifiers it's the ratio of output impedance to speaker impedance that matters. Valves are one to one (impedance matching), transistors are probably between 100 and 1000 to one (low impedance output feeding a high impedance load - voltage matching).
I can see your viewpoint but I think you are not looking at the whole picture. I am not an expert at tube amps but I do not think the output transformer is matching the plate impedance to the load impedance in the way you think. Let's use two amps using a EL84 output tube. One with no negative feedback and one with lots. The one with lots of NFB would have a lower output impedance and act more like a transistor amp in terms of impedance matching (or not matching). So throwing lot of NFB should make the amp more efficient than one without it. I'll have to test that theory but I have never heard others go that route yet for more power so I am assuming it might not be valid.
I think that transistor amps are more efficient than tube amps (not including the heater supply) due to their idle currents. Class AB bias tube amps are run at around 70% tube power dissipation while cathode biased ones run up to 100%. Transistor amps are idled at a fraction of their rated outputs. I think that may be where they gain in their efficiency.
Measure the output impedance and see
The whole point of impedance matching is to give maximum power transfer, there's no point otherwise - same thing applies to RF 50/75 ohm connections in transmitters.
The biasing differences only affect low power outputs, where transistor efficiency is even greater still, the impedance effect applies at full power as well.
A 100W valve amp driven at 100W with a sinewave will probably take 250-300W from the mains, a transistor amp probably less than 150W.
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The choice of tubes over of ss in a guitar amplifier is a matter of choice of instrument tone (a combination of the amplifier, speaker and guitar), and has little to do with efficiency. It is an artistic choice.
With respect to speaker impedance choice it's probably best to go with 8 ohms. Most amplifiers and output transformers have an 8 ohm tap. As mentioned above, a mild mismatch will generally yield acceptable results. Therefore, an 8 ohm speaker will provide acceptable results when used on either 4 ohm tap or 16 ohm taps (but best on the 8 ohm tap). A 16 ohm speaker will likely provide acceptable results on an 8 ohm tap, but will probably be marginal on a 4 ohm tap.
Regards,
Bob
With respect to speaker impedance choice it's probably best to go with 8 ohms. Most amplifiers and output transformers have an 8 ohm tap. As mentioned above, a mild mismatch will generally yield acceptable results. Therefore, an 8 ohm speaker will provide acceptable results when used on either 4 ohm tap or 16 ohm taps (but best on the 8 ohm tap). A 16 ohm speaker will likely provide acceptable results on an 8 ohm tap, but will probably be marginal on a 4 ohm tap.
Regards,
Bob
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