What happens when you put a 60 watt speaker in a 15 watt amp??

[BlueLightWas]

Hi Folks I recently bought a VOX AC15cc1. It's a 15 watt amp that normally comes with a 12 " 30 watt speaker but mine has been replaced with a 12 " 60 watt celestion silver series v12-60. Other than the differences in general speaker sound, what difference does it make if you double the wattage of the speaker? Does it mean it can handle more power before it breaks up?

 

I play an SG '61 reissue and the amp. I can turn the master volume all the way up and the pre amp volume to about 1/4 and get good compression. But I can't get a clean sound at small club gigging volume. One of the reasons I got this amp was that I could get better tone and overload the power tubes at lower volumes than my blues jr. The jr also had some nasally soundes that I always had to work to dial out. This AC15cc1 gets a much better tone, but the cleans are gone at higher volume settings. Could the speaker wattage affect how much clean I'm getting?

 

Here are the original specs for the amp

Power Output: 15 Watts RMS into an 8 or 16 ohm loudspeaker load.

 

Internal speaker: 16 ohm, 12", 30 Watt VOX/Wharfedale Custom - model AC15CC18 ohm 12"

 

Valve/tube complement: 2 x EL84/6BQ5 & 2 x 12AX7/ECC83.

 

Rectifier: silicon rectifier with passive SAG circuit.

 

Mains input: preset 100V or 120V or 230V or 240 V ~ 50 or 60 Hz depending on country of sale.

 

Dimensions: AC15CC1 & AC15CC1X (WxDxH) 732mm (28.82") x 261.9mm (10.31") x 440mm (17.32")

 

Weight: AC15CC1 21.6Kgs (47.62lbs) AC15CC1X 21.69Kgs (47.84lbs)

[BlackHawk233]

Well I can tell you it wont die.

 

 

Edit: wait I can tell you more, My Epiphone Valve Jr. head is 5 watts, powering a 200 watt cab, No problems whatsoever.

[BlueLightWas]

so what does it do when you play 5 watt head through 200 watt cab? Does it give you more clean at the higher volumes or does it break up at lower volumes?

[BlackHawk233]

I'm not really sure what it does compared to lower watts, but it breaks up about 50% volume average.

It does seem much louder than it should be though..Its running a 4X12.

[Notes_Norton]

It depends on the efficiency of the speakers involved.

 

If they were both as efficient the 60w speaker would be not as loud as it takes more to push it.

 

But speakers vary widely in their efficiency (the amount of current necessary to create a certain volume at a certain frequency) that you might not notice a difference, or the 60w speaker might even be louder.

 

One thing for sure, you probably won't blow out the new speaker.

 

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