When practicing at home, you won’t need to be as loud as possible. As a result, employing a 4×12 speaker cabinet is frequently impractical. There are a variety of tiny speakers available that provide high-quality sound at significantly lower volumes.
Today we’ll discuss 8-inch speakers. They are less expensive than 10-inch speakers and produce greater sound than 6-inch speakers. However, their model variety is far smaller than that of 12-inch speakers.
But don’t worry, we’ve spent many hours researching and testing to compile a list of the best items on the market. If you are interested in these models, keep reading our 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review for more information below.
Our Top Pick: Eminence Patriot 820H
Description: Consider the Eminence Patriot 820H if your style of play is strong. It’s a portable 20-watt 4-ohm speaker with a ceramic magnet.
Features: It boasts a somewhat trimmed mid-range, powerful lows, and crisp highs. It has a frequency range of 80 to 4600 Hz, with resonance at 144 Hz. The Patriot isn’t as bright as the Eight 15, but it’s a lot more punchy on crunch and less murky at mid and high gain.
If you’re a rock or metal guitarist, the Patriot 820H will keep your sound from becoming muddy. When you play on pure or crunch, you get a really clear sound with loads of highs.
If you are looking for the 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers, you should give this one a chance. This is probably one of the best 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers you can find.
The Eminence 820H is a fantastic speaker in every way. It has the Cannabis Rex’s warmth and smokey highs, fantastic, rich mids, and incredible low-end for an 8 speaker. Bottom line: if you need an 8-inch speaker, we can’t think of a better alternative.
Pros
- A rich, warm tone
- Top end bite
- Powerful rating
Cons
- Too clean
Runner Up: Jensen Speaker P8R8
Description: The Jensen Vintage P8R with AlNiCo is less tight and aggressive than the ceramic-based sibling, but it has a richer tone and smooth overdrive.
Features: The primary distinction is seen at high frequencies. The P8R features a treble reduction at 8 kHz but significantly boosts frequencies between 2 and 5 kHz. Furthermore, boosting at 1 kHz produces a less tight sound.
At low frequencies, the P8R and C8R are identical. The P8R is available in 8-ohm (P8R8) and 4-ohm (P8R4) variants, allowing you to tune the speaker to your amp’s output impedance.
If you are looking for the 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers, you should give this one a chance. This is probably one of the best 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers you can find. Jensen speakers have become nearly associated with classic Fender tone, having been original parts on the very first Bassman, Deluxe, and Twin Reverb amps (among others).
And the P8R we’re looking at today has a similar pedigree: While the most popular black and silver Champs and Vibro Champs used Oxford 8EV speakers, the Champion 800 (introduced in 1948) had a P8R.
Pros
- A good selection of vintage-style tones.
- Strong construction, with twin wire-lead tabs for each polarity.
Cons
- High loudness results in bubbly overdrive.
Best for Budget: Eminence American Standard Alpha-6A
Description: Suitable for mid-range usage in a sealed cabinet or as a mid-bass in a ventilated satellites box in pro audio.
Features: The Eminence Alpha-6A American Standard Series 6″ replacement speaker is ideal for keeping your live sound system sounding great. This 100W, 8 Ohm speaker is made to last according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
Eminence’s ultra-strong stamped steel chassis is used on every American Standard Series speaker for incredible longevity. So, if you’re looking for a dependable replacement speaker with great sound quality, choose the Eminence Alpha-6A American Standard Series replacement speaker.
If you are looking for the 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers, you should give this one a chance. This is probably one of the best 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers you can find.
The Eminence Alpha-6A Mid-Bass Loudspeaker Driver is part of the company’s American Standard Series and is intended for use in custom or prefabricated speaker enclosures that can accommodate a 6″ (152.4mm) diameter mid-bass driver.
The speaker will replicate vocalists, live musical acts, recorded music, and other audio signals in mid-level professional audio reproduction applications with up to 100W of power at 8 ohms. Sound reinforcement speakers for DJs, performers, small and medium-sized venues, stage monitors, and other applications are among the numerous.
Pros
- Replacement speaker for PA loudspeakers of high quality.
- Power: 100W RMS at 8 Ohms
- 85Hz-6kHz frequency range
Cons
- None
Buyer’s Guide for 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers
The first thing to realize is that the 8-inch speakers are generally ideal for low-volume practice. They are less expensive, lighter, and smaller than the most popular 12-inch speakers.
They also require a low-output-power amplifier. For example, five of the six speakers in the preceding list are 20 Watt speakers. As a result, they should not be utilized with a high output amplifier that does not include an attenuation.
You should also check the impedance of the amplifier and the speaker. Using a 4-ohm loudspeaker with an 8-ohm amplifier without a load box will destroy your amplifier.
Then you’ll get to know the speaker’s sound. Of course, you may examine its frequency response, but many individuals without particular education would find it incomprehensible.
So, if your combination amp allows you to connect an external speaker cabinet, you may connect it to the cabinet with the selected speaker and just listen to the sound.
Price
The cost is also important. Low-end speakers are frequently far inferior to mid-range or high-end speakers. However, costly equipment may not be superior to less expensive equipment. So, before you spend money on an expensive speaker, you should listen to it and compare it to all of the alternatives on your list.
Sound
If you’re not sure what kind of sound you want to produce in the future, choose speakers with mainly flat frequency responses according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
You will know what you want if you use this sort of speaker as a reference – a mid-cut, a treble increase, or an overall smoother or brighter tone according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
Vintage vs. Modern
There is also a distinction between vintage-style speakers and current-type speakers. The vintage-type speakers produce speaker distortion at lower levels and have a warmer overall tone than current design speakers. Modern type speakers, on the other hand, allow you to hear just the amplifier’s distortion.
Magnet
Let’s have a look at the magnet material of the speaker. There are two types of magnets: AlNiCo magnets and ceramic magnets. Ceramic magnets demagnetize more easily, do not cause compression, and have a clearer tone. However, there is no discernible variation in tone.
Every component of the speaker’s design contributes to the overall tone, and it’s difficult to determine how much the magnet influences the tone of this specific speaker according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
A little tight?
The outside diameter of the cone is used to specify guitar speaker size, with 12″ being the most common but there are lots of terrific sounding 10″ speakers as well. However, going any smaller risks jeopardize the low end.
In principle, one 12″ speaker may be switched out for any other 12″ speaker, and this is usually true according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
However, speakers can often be too deep to fit inside a combination or cabinet, especially if they have a closed-back construction. So, if you’re upgrading an old speaker to a new model, take the time to investigate its exact measurements, or you risk converting a pleasant five minutes into hours of tantrum-inducing stress.
The appropriate speaker for you
Selecting the driver that best meets your tonal needs as an upgrade or replacement requires some soul searching, as you travel between all of the features outlined above, taking into account power-handling requirements and desired sensitivity/efficiency.
Great musicians throughout tone history have discovered some very unique and excellent sounds by using improbable speaker selections in unexpected locations, so don’t allow the American/British categories presented here to suggest any rigorous standards according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
Distortion of the speaker
When we talk about speaker distortion, we imply a type of distortion that occurs when a driver is pushed to its operational limitations, as opposed to amplifier distortion. The voice coil and paper cone begin to fail to cleanly convert the electrical signal, resulting in a somewhat (or, in extreme cases, substantially) distorted performance.
Simply said, the voice coil begins to saturate, the paper cone begins to flap and shake beyond its capacity, the magnet’s performance compresses, and the whole electro-mechanical network that constitutes a speaker collaborates to add its own degree of fuzz to the brew.
Ceramic vs. Alnico magnets
Alnico magnets have a distinct buzz in the speaker world (and even in the world of guitar pickups), and are regarded as a more “musical magnet” renowned for sweetness and dynamics.
Alnico is a metal alloy composed of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt (blended with a quantity of iron). Because of the relative scarcity and high cost of cobalt, it is a more expensive alternative to the ceramic magnets used in speaker manufacture, and alnico was all but phased out in the 1970s and 1980s according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
While this description of alnico indicates superiority, keep in mind that many classic speakers, including many antique versions that are still the driver of choice for innumerable prominent musicians and tone hounds, were manufactured using ceramic magnets.
Is it better to have a combination amp or a head and cabinet?
This one is actually rather straightforward, as it is entirely dependent on the size of the facility according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
Today’s combinations are well-equipped to give the power you need to be heard all the way in the back for club gigs and even modest halls. If you want enough acoustic firepower to fill a large auditorium or even an open arena, you’ll need a high-powered stack with at least a 4 x 12′′ cabinet and a 100-watt head.
As a disclaimer, some musicians still prefer a smaller amp for its distinctive tone, such as a Vox AC30, and then just mic the amp and run it into the PA system (provided the PA will handle it, of course). Keep in mind that a combination is an all-in-one item, whereas a head and cabinet are separate and frequently heavier.
Which is preferable, solid state or tube?
In this case, conventional wisdom is that solid-state circuitry can deliver greater clean power at a considerably lower cost, but the scarcity of vacuum tube manufacturers nowadays tends to make tube-based amplifiers more costly than a comparable powered solid-state amplifier.
This has resulted in some intriguing hybrids, such as those in which the fundamental tone is provided by a tube-driven preamp and the power amp is solid state according to this 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review.
Still, the majority of “serious” players will almost always choose a tube amp, but this is changing as manufacturers release incredible new amps based on cutting-edge technology. Finally, whether solid-state or tube, the most crucial factor is selecting an amp with the tones you want.
Conclusion: 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers [2022 Review]
We listed the 3 best 6-inch guitar speakers for you, and there is no poor choice in this list, so go with whichever you want. We hope you liked our 3 Best 8-inch Guitar Speakers review and it was helpful.