Exactly. I mean - most cabs can "handle" most cabs, but there are 2 things to consider, how you can fuck things up:
1) Just as an example: If You have a 120W amp, and only 50W 212 - and you crank the amp, you are running danger blowing your speakers, and when the speakers are blown, your amp doesnt see a load on the output anymore, and then you can also blow the output transformer of your amp. Cab and amp ruined. Thats the technical thing to consider.
2) An amp will ALWAYS only sound as "good" as the cab is. The cab is one of the most important things when its up to sound. The best amp in the world, running over a - lets say - 100,- Behringer 212, will always sound shit. A mediocre amp, over a very good cab, will probably sound awesome. Example: Mesa Boogie over Behringer Cab: shit sound; Bugera Amp over Mesa Cab: pretty awesome sounding to be honest. And its not only between "good" and "bad", there are also combinations (of "good" amp and "Good" cab) that just dont fit together:
For example - My Diezel sounds great, thats why I love it. I think Mesa Cabs are great. But those together arent a good match. I had a Mesa Oversized cab a few times as backline, and it was not possible to dial in the sound how I wanted it to be, it was either too boomy/bass-heavy sounding, or - when i corrected that by turning down bass/deep etc. - to thin. there was no "sweet spot".
Or anotehr example, and a bit more detailled: what we forget very often is, that what we hear as "distortion" or "gain" is too a big part also the amount of "saturation". For example the VHT/Fryette Pitbull - it has SHITLOADS of gain, but reallyreally dry sounding - its completeley different than for example the oversaturated gain-strcuture of an Engl Powerball. So many people would at first think "Wow, that Pitbull hasnt enough gain". Now: Most saturated distortion sounds have an emphasis in the higher-mids and (lower)treble frequencies. And there are cabs, or better said: speakers, that just dont pronounce these frequencies as others would do OR they DO pronounce them, but they only seem to appear when the speakers are pushed. A speaker like for example the Celestion V30, does pronounce this when pushed and therefor always adds some kind of "satuartion" (if you want) to the sound, which we in total than also hear as "gain coming from the amp". So, if you now have an amp, and dial in the gain settings as in your normal live-setting (where you usually (as example) have a V30loaded cab under your amp), but now test on lower bedroom volumes, with a cab that has speakers that either dont pronounce these freqs at all, or would need to be pushed - your are not getting the results you want.
I had once this "custom made" cab as backline, provided by someone of a local band - fat wood, and loaded with Eminence speakers but I dont remember which ones unfortunately. The sound was SO dry and unsaturated, I was at first afraid I had a tube failure or something...tried another cab - everything normal. It really was just the cab with the speakers, that was so EXTREMELY dark sounding (with a complete scoop on the high mids and trebles), that the gain sounded like "crunch rock".
And then there is also the point that factory-new cabs mostly sound shit, speakers need some "break-in" time to sound good.
Long story short: cab not fitting? Instant crap sound.
Oh, and also: A (high power) tube amp on bedroom volume also won't give you as much saturation/"gain" as normal, when its driven on rehearsalroom/stage-volumes. Tubes need to be "pushed" also a bit. But we covered that already, still: An atenuator may rbing the "saturation", but it will also make the amp sound worse imho...I havent heard a single good result with an attenuator yet.
Well thats a quite of load of things to consider. BTW, its better to crank the master volume up than the channel volume right? Because the master volume is linked to the preamps if im not wrong
Dam right! The fourth channel on my amp has stacks more gain and distortion...
