practice amps and speakers

I'm looking for a small, sturdy practice amp for my son. He more likes to play with effects (flangers, chorus, filters, etc.) and make noise, sound fx rather than typical "playing". We've already blown through the mini amps. Will a small 10-15W combo amp w/a 6-8 inch speaker be sufficient. Other than using overpowered amps on underpowered speakers, what actually blows out speakers? I guess I'm worried about loud, low frequencies damaging the speakers. Any suggestions?

thnx

There's more and more companies offereing low watts amps with built-in effects.

Amps like Line 6 Spider series (I own one and it's great) or Roland Cube (I still have my Roland 15 watt, 14 years and still working. It's not a cube model but Roland is a reliable company) are probably good amps to look into for your son.

Personnaly, I never crank an amp (always had combo amps) passed 8. It's just an habit I've developed of the years. If I need more than what my amp can handle at 8, it's time to look for a bigger one. Eventho they go up to 10 I never feel easy cranking them up. I don't know if it has anything to do with it but I never blew up an amp :)

As for what can damage a speaker, unfortunatly I'm not a gearhead so I can't really shed any lights on that part.

Originally Posted by: lpmace_98.... Other than using overpowered amps on underpowered speakers, what actually blows out speakers? I guess I'm worried about loud, low frequencies damaging the speakers. Any suggestions?

thnx

Loud & low will destroy a speaker if the cone travels so far that it spends significant time beyond the designed voice coil travel. The coil needs to cool off by passing heat to the magnet structure. Long sessions of high power operation dump a lot of heat into the coil while making it harder for it to cool off. This can eventually cause the coil to fail. In extreme cases, the bobbin of the voice coil can move out past the magnet, and get stuck there. Then the coil burns out. Cone damage may be the result of excessive power, but can also happen due to transients like clicks and pops that cause a brief surge of unusually strong signal to the speaker. It's never a good idea to plug in, or unplug, the guitar cord while the amp is 'live' for this reason.

I'm not sure what you mean by "mini amps", but once you move into the 20-plus Watt range, you generally have better quality components to work with. Another factor is that the smallest amps are all transistor, which produce a DC component in the output if the power amp 'clips' when it is driven hard. Tube amps are transformer-coupled to the speaker, which has the inadvertant benefit of preventing DC from reaching the speaker.

Excellent information folks. Thanks for the help.