I have been kicking around the idea of buying a 1w amp for recording and practice.  I have not decided what I am going to buy yet, but I have had this idea floating around my head and wondering if it is possible to do this.  I am leaning towards a head, instead of a combo, because I never like the small 8" speakers that come with the cabinets. 
 
Rather than buying a cabinet, is it possible to just connect the speakers from my Peavey Classic 50/410 and connect the 1w Head instead?  I see that it has 8 and 16 ohm connections on the Classic 50.  It looks like the lead is to short to actually make it to the Head if you were to set the Head on top of the amp.

the thing is,
you want to match the wattage and 'efficiency' of the speaker, to the amp.
 
that would be a huge mis-match, if you ask me.
 
but, there are no rules.
 
you will not get much speaker excursion with an oversized speaker and 1 watt.
 
and speaker excursion, is where about half the magic happens.
 

if you have a particular amp in mind..
and know it is exactly 1 watt, and it gives you what you want...... (the marshall JMP-1H comes to mind)
 
then i would get busy on doing low watt 10" or 12" driver homework,
and build a custom closed back cab just for the purpose.
 
i've done this with drivers in my Demeter Iso cab,
and ended up with a custom Weber 
 
 
 
 
 
here's an interesting article to consider:
http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/shattering-speaker-pairing-misconceptions-1
 
 

Bat,
 
I have by no means made up my mind yet, but the one that got me thinking about it is the Blackstar H1.  I was intrigued by the speaker/ headphone out simulation as well.  I believe that it said it could be routed to a mixing board through that simulated out.  GC had the 8" Combo that I played with for a couple of hours. 

you know that 8" speaker will sound........ small.
even if you put a 57 right on the edge of it, for some proximity effect,
it will never sound like a larger cab or driver...
that said, could be a cool sound,
and you can always output to a larger cab, and blend that with the direct out.
that blackstar head is only $250.....
the JMP-1h is $1000.
 
lol
 
 
they are NOT going to sound the same.
 
 

Yes, the 8" speaker sounded very wimpy and small, that's what got me wondering what it would sound like through a 4/10 set of speaks.  As you say, it may not drive them enough to sound right. 

Of course it's subjective, but I did a few recordings w/ the Direct Out on the Blackstar, and listening back, I'm not all that happy w/ the sound. 
 
For my taste, it's better than the D.O. on my little Marshall and my little Fender but not as good as the emulated out on my L6 Spider.
 
One I'd be curious to try is the Hugues and Kettner. (I have to have a H&K someday).
 
8" may work for certain things in certain contexts, but I don't think it'd be as versatile as the classic 12". Again, that's strictly personal.
 
My Randall has a 10". Better, but that's still not entirely it for me. I'll probably add a little 1x12, or ideally a 2x12 cab eventually.
 
 

FOR RECORDING LOW VOLUME.....
 
i have my 'big rig' automatically dialed in for low volume/quiet recording.....
 

 
my current favorite recording technique (guitars) using a Weber Mass Lite and Palmer PDI-09 by itself.
This allows for a 'quiet' way to capture full bore tube amp sounds into a DAW, without getting evicted or divorced.
but you can also run your amp wide open, as loud as you want, and the signal from the palmer stays the same, more or less.
The Weber Mass Lite, 100w, is my attenuator of choice.

https://taweber.powweb.com/weber/masslite.htm

Palmer PDI-09:


here's how i use it:
i go Mesa boogie Mark IIb 60 watt tube head /speaker out (8 or 4 ohm, prefer 8) into the Palmer PDI-09.
so, boogie speaker out into palmer 'INPUT', and then back out via the 'THRU', and that goes to the Weber, for attenuation.
From the Weber, 'speaker out' to whatever cab i want to use (the demeter isolation cabinet if i want to play loud, the celestion greenback cab if i want to monitor 'open air'.)
idea here is, if i want to record in the headphones, i can attenuate the piss out of the boogie, put it in the demeter, and it is almost silent.
if i want to play loud, and play along with my monitors blasting my backing tracks, i can use my closed back 1x12 with the celestion, or into the demeter, and play as loud as i want.. the palmer doesn't know the difference, only the weber comes into play, and since i'm not micing, there's no bleed over from the guitar cab and the monitors......
so, the 'BAL. OUT' on the palmer, is an XLR out, that goes to a mic preamp, digital convertor, and into the DAW.
the switches on the top of the palmer give me line level attenuation, and 3 different 'cab and mic' sounds.
i like the NORMAL setting the best. It's all passive, the weber and the palmer, so i'm not introducing any kind of electrical noise at either of these two units.

on the weber:
the feel of the response to the speaker cab, seems and feels more natural to me than other attenuators i've used before.
but, i've got to run it almost maxed out to get the 'bedroom volume' control i want for actually using my speaker cab for monitoring.
luckily, i have a Demeter iso box, that i can use as a load box to run the weber a little hotter (less attenuation, i mean).
the little palmer pdi-09 unit is the thing that's stealing the true 'amp wide open' sound, so the weber is strictly for monitoring purposes..... i'm not micing the cab.
notice the (2) attenuators on the face of the weber.....
the mids/highs one on the right, just works a little bit...
most of the energy is going to the lows and mids, so the attenuator on the left i've got maxed out, and then backed off a bit (about 1) with the highs set at about 2 or 3.
when it's maxed out, i can actually hear the speaker motor inside the cage working.
oh my god, don't dare hit the bypass switch, when the amp has the master sitting on '7'.....
LOL.. that'll wake you up.
the boogie really sounds different, with the master almost wide open.
the entire tone stack, opens up, and the mids become very throaty.
the unit does get a bit hot...
and smells funny, at first, but the more it is used, the new burn smell goes away.
using these devices, allows you to re-think all of the gain structures, and choices of eq settings.
the pedals i use, seem to have more tone and control, now that i'm running the boogie at it's optimum setting for tube magic and transformer magic.

Interesting stuff, Bat.

I've been messing with small single ended amps for the last year. No matter what I try, the big sound at bedroom volume has eluded me unless I run a pedal for distortion. Bat is using a pretty elaborate rig for his tone, so I'm not surprised that he gets good tone.
 
I never liked the sound of any speaker less than 10", so I'm usually building a single or dual 12" for the small amps. The open back 2x12 is my go to speaker cab and I have one in the living room. A 5 watt amp through that cab sounds great. The cab is rated for a max of 300 watts so you might think it would be under powered. With a little amp wound out you are sending the cab a square wave with a ton of harmonic content. I feel the bigger speaker is better at handling that without damage.
 
For a 1 watt amp I'd likely go with a single 12" speaker. Alnico is kind of magic when pushed hard. An Alnico magnet reacts to the voltage generated in the voice coil and acts like a compressor. The voice coil creates it's own little EMF field that counter acts the magnet in the speaker, causing it to temporarily reduce the magnetic flux of the Alnico magnet. The response rolls off under full load. When you back off a bit, the flux comes back and response increases, as if by magic. So, my choice for the 1 watter would be a Jensen P12R or Celestion Blue.