Some luck with low wattage, big speaker amps

[Guitar Gear Reviews]

Anyone here had any successes with putting small homemade amps into "oversized" cabinets and speakers?

Since I'm in college now, I don't have many (any, really) opportunities to bust out the soldering gun anymore, but I did test out installing a little LM386 amplifier circuit into a cheap, bigass, vintage speakers, and it turned out pretty cool, I was curious if anyone else had done anything similar!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9cptpr-Mic

I've built about 5 different LM386 circuit amps and the thing that impresses me most is how much the tone depends on the speakers - and the volume too.  With the huge speakers, the volume was well over double what came from the smaller amps (mostly in added bass), despite having no additional wattage.  Pretty fun to play around with anyway!

http://mattwins.blogspot.com/2014/01/works-in-progress.html

[R.G.]

People spend a lot of time tinkering with circuits, but when it comes to hearing the result, speakers matter. Guitar speakers, especially. They are NOT designed for smooth, uncolored reproduction. They are actually a form of musical instrument themselves, with their own voice.

Speaker size has a huge effect on how much air the speaker can move, and that has a huge effect on the apparent bass. So yes, big old speakers will have a lot more bass.

Speakers also vary in how efficiently they transform electricity in to acoustic vibrations power - sound that is. The industry measurement is some form of sound pressure in db at 1meter distance, on axis, with 1W of drive. Woofer-ish speakers from the hifi area are built to sacrifice sheer loudness for smooth, uncolored response. Guitar speakers are usually designed to sound LOUD, even if they screech at some tones. Hifi woofers can be as low as 80db SPL, many are only 86-90db. Guitar speakers are typically 98 to 106db.

Db is a power RATIO. So a speaker that's 10db louder is the same the quieter speaker being driven with ten times the electrical power. So a 90db speaker replaced with a 100db speaker suffers badly in the comparison. Just replacing the speaker can make the sound twice as loud. Notice that the testing power is 1W. 90-100db is LOUD.

Speakers matter.

[Jdansti]

Yep. My little Noisy Cricket amp sounds pretty dang good going into a 2x12 cab. Much better than a single 8" speaker.

[plexi12000]

R.G. --- i like the "IQ test" you have there!!  about the top secret info?   hahaha!  that'll get you the ol' knock on the door at 3am fer sure!

[Jdansti]

R.G. --- i like the "IQ test" you have there!!  about the top secret info?   hahaha!  that'll get you the ol' knock on the door at 3am fer sure!

Not if your a scheming, lying, politically connected scumbag. I won't mention any names.