So, I can ask this and feel stupid on the forum or I can screw it up down the road and have it cost me money. Since I don't personally know anyone on the forum, here it is.
Does an overdrive pedal increase the output wattage of the the amp or is the amp wattage limited by the rating of the output transformer?
Somehow, I associate volume with wattage (Maybe because of Quilter's wattage/volume control.) but I know that the right speaker hooked up to a 1 watt amp can generate a lot of volume. I don't want to stretch the lower limit in a speaker/amp circuit match up because I like the tone, only to blow the speaker because I gave the setup too much boost.
The amp is a unit to itself and can only put out so much power. However the input signal from your guitar may not be enough to fully drive the amp on its own, so here you may want some kind of a pedal to bump up the level going into the amp. Obviously the harder you drive the amp the louder it gets until it overdrives, at which point it starts compressing and producing all kinds of overtones. Pushing an amp into overdrive may be a desirable trait.
Doesn't have to be an overdrive pushing the amp, however, just that the pedal features a volume or level control that can be set past unity gain. This is really what boosts were meant to do before they were deliberately driven past their clean range for additional layers of dirt.
Almost ny amp can be driven to perhaps just short of twice its rated clean power - the trannies should be able to handle this. So OD-ing a 1W amp to perhaps 2W is not likely to run any speaker beyond its rated capacity, seeing that 1W rated speakers are rare, if they even exist. Even so a quality speaker should handle 50% - 100% on top of its rated power, at least intermittently.
Let's remember however that squarewave, which is basically what a distorted signal constitutes of, tend to build up heat sooner than perfect sinewave. But again, in your case, I'd doubt the speaker would be in any immediate danger.
Thanks Jonas. That is what logic told me but, I've been the victim of my own logic more than once. I was specifically thinking of putting a 25 watt speaker in a 22 watt amp.