50W 16ohm Speaker in 50W 8ohm Amp?

[danielperez808]

Hi guys,

I have a 16ohm Celestion Gold 50W speaker and I was thinking about putting it in a Ampeg Reverberocket R12R 1X12 that is rated at 50W 8ohms.

Should I be scared? I never feel the need to push the amp to it's limits, but I do kick in the occasional distortion, or fuzz. I like the amp to stay clean mostly.

What do you guys think about this?
Let me know your thoughts. I know this setup is exactly what is on the new heritage series from Ampeg, but those are also only rated to like 30 watts. My ampeg is a 90's reissue which are suppose to be 50W from what I hear. It has 2 EL34's

 

[big mike]

2:1 missmatch is usually acceptable.
SHOULD be fine...

Hopefully Obied Khan will cruise through. He posts on occasion here, but he was the designer at SLM when your amp was built.

Great sounding amps BTW I miss mine. Particularly for cleans.

 

[danielperez808]

I know I can put the 16ohm speaker on a 8ohm amp, but does the speaker wattage from a 16ohm speaker peaking the same as when a 8ohm speaker is peaking?

 

[Keyser Soze]

With a high mismatch (your new speaker offering greater resistance to current flow than the specified rating) the speaker will probably see less total power output, so that is not a major concern.

(edit, error, I was thinking of the 22 watt model)

The bigger concern with a high mismatch is flyback voltage that might damage your amp's output transformer and/or tubes.

As previously noted, a 2:1 mismatch is generally considered the safe limit for a quality amp. Running the amp at something below full tilt is probably a good idea.

 

[phsyconoodler]

The only thing I wouldn't like about using the Celestion is the lack of bottom end.A big ceramic magnet sounds better in a reverb amp IMHO.

 

[big mike]

Yeah those do run close to 50 watts probably more dimed.
I had the head for many years, and sold them in a store.

believe it or not, they sound really good through vintage 30s.

I'd probably do a different speaker though. If I was spending the dough on it, I'd go Scumback J75. For less money a WGS ET65 wouldn't be too bad either.

 

[phsyconoodler]

Two thumbs up for the ET65!

 

[Tone_Terrific]

You won't generate max power with a mismatch.