If you’ve ever tried to copy your favourite guitarist’s tone, you quickly learned that the most desired tones come from a complex interaction between all of the parts: strings, pickups, speakers, amplifiers, and anything else that makes its way into the signal chain.
When your tone chasing journey gets underway and you decide to build your own guitar cabinet, the initial excitement of building your own gear can easily give way to being overwhelmed by technical specifications and the amount of choices you have to make. This is especially true if you are used to buying pre-built amps and cabinets and this is your first custom build.
That’s why we put together this guide -- to help you understand the terms you’ll encounter and to point out what you should keep in mind when choosing a speaker for your guitar cabinet, and help you get started in planning your custom cabinet build.
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Speaker wattage, measured in watts (W), indicates how much power a speaker can handle. A speaker’s wattage does not necessarily determine how loud it will be, because this is also impacted by other factors such as the speaker’s efficiency, which is a measure of how well it can convert power into sound. A lower-efficiency speaker will be quieter than a higher-efficiency speaker when powered by the same amplifier.
The most important thing here is to buy a speaker with a wattage rating equal to or greater than your amp head’s output. If your amp head puts out more power than your speaker can handle, you’re likely to damage the speaker. If you plan to crank your amp to its max output, you might want to choose a speaker with a higher wattage rating than your amp for some buffer.
Beyond basic safety considerations, choosing the right speaker wattage depends on factors such as the intended use of the amp and the genre. A 1 watt amp can deliver some strong rock tones and sound impressively loud in a bedroom or living room, but you’ll need something heftier if you’re jamming with bandmates or touring. And some genres such as jazz and funk value a clean tone, which means they’ll default to higher wattages that can handle a clean tone at high volumes without introducing distortion.
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Impedance, measured in ohms, indicates the resistance to the flow of electrical current that a speaker has. An amp will have a minimum impedance, and you need to make sure that your speaker has at least that much impedance. If the speaker impedance is greater than the minimum required by the amp, then you’ll just have to turn the volume up a bit.
For example if your amp has a minimum impedance of 8 ohms, you can use an 8 or 16 ohm speaker without any issues, but you should avoid using a 4 ohm speaker since this would be below the amp’s minimum impedance.
And if you are connecting multiple cabinets to one amp, make sure to read up on how to calculate the total impedance of the cabinets, since these can interact unexpectedly.
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At Implicit Audio we offer cab kits for 10” and 12” speakers. Our 10” models are ideal for building a practice amp or for use in a small to medium size living space, delivering a solid sound without taking up too much space.
If you’re playing outside, touring, or jamming with friends (especially if there’s a drummer involved), then you might need something with a bit more presence and power, and that’s where our 12” models come in, as a larger speaker will bring more body and bass into the sound.
You need to be clear about what you want from your tone before you can find the right speaker. Of course you can learn all sorts of things about frequency response graphs, alnico vs ceramic magnets, magnet weight, and so on. But at the end of the day, what matters is the sound of your tone, so here’s a couple entry points to get you thinking:
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We hope this guide gave you some clarity on what kind of speaker you are looking for and helped you get one step closer to imagining your custom cabinet build!
Once you’ve chosen your speaker and how you want to finish your cabinet, we think you’ll enjoy building your Implicit Audio guitar cabinet kit. There’s a certain delight to building your own gear and getting to personalize it each step of the way. In our experience, it’s hard to stop once you start.
Check out our product selection , or reach out through our contact page if you have any questions as you plan your build.This is an extremely thorough guide, so if you’re planning on building your own guitar cabinet, you might want to favorite/bookmark this page for easy access.
How To Choose The Right Ebs Cabinet(s).
Plywood is the most common choice if you want to cover your cabinet in Tolex. You won’t see the wood underneath the Tolex, so plywood is a great option.
If you want to have a cabinet where you can see the wood (with stain or varnish), a nice hardwood is the best choice.
While you can technically build a guitar cab out of MPF or particle board, it’s not recommended. MDF can easily warp due to moisture and degrade over time.
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Cheap cabinets are often made out of MDF or particleboard, so if you’re going to put the time and effort into building your own cabinet, you may as well produce a good quality one using good materials.
An open-back guitar cabinet projects sound from the front as well as the back. This can fill a room up with space far more than a closed back cabinet.
Open-back cabinets are useful during band practice or live performances. The cabinet will spread the sound around which helps other band members hear your guitar.
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A closed-back cabinet can only project the sound from the front, which results in a more focused and punchy tone. The bass response is tighter compared to open-back cabinets.
Having a closed-back cabinet during a live performance or band practice can be difficult as the sound only projects clearly directly in front of the cabinet. If a drummer sits behind your closed back cabinet, they may not hear your guitar.
At the same time, a closed-back cabinet is easier for the sound engineer as there will be no spillage onto other instruments (eg: drum microphones).
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If you’re unsure whether you want a closed-back or open-back cabinet, consider building a cabinet with a removable back panel (shown below). You can add and remove panels as you like to get the best of both worlds.
Key point:having an open or closed back cabinet changes your tone in different situations, so think about how you plan on using your cabinet.
I reached out to a few speaker-selling websites to find out what their best-selling speakers were and the above list shows the most popular models.
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You might notice that a lot of popular guitar speaker models are inspired by or a direct result of vintage amps. But just because a speaker is based on vintage hardware, it doesn’t mean it’s only for vintage-style guitar tones.
For example, the Celestion Vintage 30 is popular with metal guitarists. When used in a modern metal rig, it definitely doesn’t produce a vintage tone.
So while you will see a lot of advice saying something like “use X speaker for vintage blues”, there are no clear rules on which speakers work best with different styles of music.
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Listening to the different models in a back-to-back comparison is a far better way to decide which speaker to buy compared to reading a specifications list.
The above YouTube channel (Zilla Cabs) creates excellent comparisons of different speakers. You can hear the subtle (and sometimes not subtle) differences between different speakers in these videos.
Key point:there are many great guitar speakers to choose from and there’s no easy answer for which one to buy. Listen to some comparison videos to get a better idea of the characteristics of each model.
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Having a single speaker in a cabinet creates a focused sound, while multiple speakers spread the sound out and blend the soundwaves between the speakers.
If you use multiple speakers, you can choose whether to use the same speaker models in the cabinet or mix different models. Some guitarists like to mix different types of speakers in a cabinet to achieve a blend of different tones.
If you plan on using multiple speakers in a cabinet, you will need to think about wiring them in series or parallel. Read the ‘Guitar Speaker Wiring Diagrams’ section later in this guide to learn how to properly wire up multiple speakers in a cabinet.
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It’s also a good idea to think about the overall weight of your guitar cabinet. The more speakers you want, the bigger and heavier your cabinet will be.
Taking a 1×12 cabinet to band practice is much easier than dragging a massive 4×12, so keep weight in mind when planning your build.
The number in the speaker model usually tells you the size of the speaker. For example, the ‘G12’ in Celestion models are for 12″ speakers and the Jensen MOD 10 is for a
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