I have a friend who's into car audio and all that. He was checking out my amps and popped me 2 questions that I can't answer:

1. Why is my guitar amp's wattage so much lower than the 1000 watt amp in his truck, and I'm still blowin' the windows outta the house? What's the difference, yet volume doesn't seem to be a factor?

2. He said my Vox's speakers looked low quality to him (remember he doesn't know jack about guitars, but he is a wiz with sound) and asked if I could improve my tone if I used speakers of a quality like used in car audio. Is this possible, to improve tone by using a different speaker type than what we, as guitarists, consider to be the high end of speakers (like Celestions)?

The wattage question is just bugging me, but the speaker thing is driving me batshit. I'm still chasing THAT tone, and curious if speakers might help balance the harmonic complexities of my guitars, and maybe bring sounds out that have been hidden by speaker type.








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1. It is important that his signal not distort than yours, because his music has already been mixed down and you just want to hear a louder version of the already mastered song. Your amps on the other hand, it is okay and actually desirable for them to distort at high volumes. His amp needs 1000 watts to be clean when its loud, but your Vox can distort and be just fine with 30 watts.

2. On paper, musical equipment has improved drastically since the days of classic equipment. There is no need for tubes because solid state components do the same thing more efficiently. Speakers also have become much more efficient. The problem is that INEFFICIENCY in the components is one of the main reasons your Vox has such a golden tone. The "warmth" that people talk about in tone is usually caused by inefficient parts modifying the sound in a way that sound excellent.

You can always try to improve your sound with experimenting, but I'm guessing this is why Vox and Celesions have reputations for being guitar speakers.

benitosuave wrote:

1. It is important that his signal not distort than yours, because his music has already been mixed down and you just want to hear a louder version of the already mastered song. Your amps on the other hand, it is okay and actually desirable for them to distort at high volumes. His amp needs 1000 watts to be clean when its loud, but your Vox can distort and be just fine with 30 watts.

2. On paper, musical equipment has improved drastically since the days of classic equipment. There is no need for tubes because solid state components do the same thing more efficiently. Speakers also have become much more efficient. The problem is that INEFFICIENCY in the components is one of the main reasons your Vox has such a golden tone. The "warmth" that people talk about in tone is usually caused by inefficient parts modifying the sound in a way that sound excellent.

You can always try to improve your sound with experimenting, but I'm guessing this is why Vox and Celesions have reputations for being guitar speakers.

BINGO !....you hit the nail on the head.

IF you were to mic, and then re amp your guitar speaker (pa system) you would want a "better" speaker and amp.
that way your already perfect guitar tone would simply be made much much louder , and not colored by amp and speaker distortion .








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