which would provide more clean volume - two rubys or one little Gem MKII?

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I am looking at building some small amps, and had planned on building a small cabinet that had three or four ruby's, all connected to the same input, but each with their own volume/gain controls.

What I don't know is:

a) would I get more out of hooking one ruby to multiple speakers?
b) would I get more out of one of those little gem mk II's which are basically two little gems bridged, rather than two rubys, or is it pretty much a draw?

[Mark Hammer]

Well, typically, all other things being equal, you need to pump roughly 10x the wattage into a speaker for it to sound twice as loud.  The Little Gem Mk II can be bridged for about a watt or a little more.  That's not going to be perceptibly louder than one Ruby.

Here is what I will say, though.

1) Use a sturdy 12V supply if you want lots of clean volume from either of them, obeying guidelines for what sort of load can be tolerated by the chip/s you use at the supply voltage you use.

2) Use the most efficient speaker you can find in a cabinet that will conserve every last ounce of juice the amp can provide.  A 5-6" full range speaker in a decent sized box with a suitable front-facing vent can make efficient use of your half watt.

3) A Little Gem Mk II will not let you play with stereo effects, but a pair of Rubys with their individual speakers will let you experiment with stereo.

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Thank you very much for that answer.

So 10x the wattage to double the volume through a speaker? So I am guessing that 2x the same amp will also not actually "sound" twice as loud either, even though doubling the sound will technically be be 3dB louder, correct?

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well here's my non-scientific but practiical results

one ruby two identical speakers= definitely louder than 1speaker, not twice as loud though

two rubies fed by one input (not bridged, but two seperate amps with thir own speakers) DO sound twice as loud as one

this weird franken-amp is starrting to take shape

[Mark Hammer]

When amps are in that low a power range,quite often simple changes to the speaker, speaker size, or cabinet properties have far more bearing on actual loudness than mucking about with how many additional milliwatts one is throwing at the speakers.

So, at a certain point, once you have explored all the amplification possibilities, feel free to play with the output with the understanding that it will be able to extend the audible volume even further.