16 ohm cab... 4 ohm amp?

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devon8822
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16 ohm cab... 4 ohm amp?

Post by devon8822 » Mon Aug 17, 2009 11:58 pm

So the orange cabs are 16 ohms... what if I have a 4 ohm amp, can I plug it in to 16 ohm cab? Would it sound or work any different than if it was a 4 ohm cab?

RyanWasHere
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Post by RyanWasHere » Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:30 am

Solidstate amp or tube amp?
Solidstate fine, tube not fine.

You can easily rewire a 16ohm cab as 4ohm cab just open it up and tell us if each speaker is 16ohms or 4ohms.

BTW if its a SS amp, it will push the speakers harder if you wire it as a 4ohm cab. Quite a lot louder. So if you planning on using this cab for this head exclusively. Then i would make it 4 ohms even if its SS.

Cheers
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Gtr_Pkr
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Post by Gtr_Pkr » Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:11 pm

RyanWasHere, sorry man but I have to disagree with you. It is totally ok to run a 4ohm amp into a 16 ohm cab. The rule is that you can mismatch ohms as long as you mismatch lower rather than higher. Example....I have a Traynor Bassmaster which is a 8 ohm amp. I run this amp into my Marshall speaker cabs which are 16 ohm cabs. I have mismatched the ohms, but the amp puts out less ohms than the speakers. This is ok. I have played for several hours with this setup and my amp and cabs work without any problems. If you have a 16 ohm amp into 8ohm speakers, you will blow the speakers and possibly the output transformer of the amp.

You can plug a 4 ohm amp into a 16 ohm cabinet.
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Post by kittenface » Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:58 pm

Gtr_Pkr wrote:RyanWasHere, sorry man but I have to disagree with you. It is totally ok to run a 4ohm amp into a 16 ohm cab. The rule is that you can mismatch ohms as long as you mismatch lower rather than higher. Example....I have a Traynor Bassmaster which is a 8 ohm amp. I run this amp into my Marshall speaker cabs which are 16 ohm cabs. I have mismatched the ohms, but the amp puts out less ohms than the speakers. This is ok. I have played for several hours with this setup and my amp and cabs work without any problems. If you have a 16 ohm amp into 8ohm speakers, you will blow the speakers and possibly the output transformer of the amp.

You can plug a 4 ohm amp into a 16 ohm cabinet.
that's correct - it'll work just fine
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a.hun
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Post by a.hun » Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:56 am

Gtr_Pkr wrote:RyanWasHere, sorry man but I have to disagree with you. It is totally ok to run a 4ohm amp into a 16 ohm cab. The rule is that you can mismatch ohms as long as you mismatch lower rather than higher. Example....I have a Traynor Bassmaster which is a 8 ohm amp. I run this amp into my Marshall speaker cabs which are 16 ohm cabs. I have mismatched the ohms, but the amp puts out less ohms than the speakers. This is ok. I have played for several hours with this setup and my amp and cabs work without any problems. If you have a 16 ohm amp into 8ohm speakers, you will blow the speakers and possibly the output transformer of the amp.

You can plug a 4 ohm amp into a 16 ohm cabinet.
Sorry Gtr_Pkr, kittenface, but RyanWasHere had it dead right!

Common misconceptions there, but dead wrong...
(Also you are also getting more than a tad confused: Your example above of an 8 ohm amp into a 16 ohm cab is a high direction mismatch, not a low direction one. Though you did say 16 ohm cabs. If you meant running into two 16 ohm cabs then there would be no mismatch at all...) :shock:



Anyway... here we go again. (I've been here before in my other forum persona as annoying impedance man Andy H.)
Fact is that if ever impedance mismatching a VALVE amp it is FAR less dangerous for the amp itself to run into a too low rather than a too high impedance. Too high impedance loads are the quickest way to kill your valve amp!

There are very good reasons why that is so...

Think about it: what kills a valve amp quickest? Running with no speaker load attached is what. That means trying to run it into fresh air = a very high impedance load. Conversely if you short circuit the speaker connections of a valve amp (touch the +ve and -ve together --> very low impedance, near zero ohms!) it'll almost always survive. (Not recommending you try that, but it is true all the same!*) If anything goes with a low direction mismatch it'll be the power valves. But in fact they (unlike the output power transformers of a solid state amp) are pretty much self limiting as far as power output is concerned. Rather than trying to put out more and more power into a lower impedance, (exactly the the problem which destroys the output sections of ss amps), the impedance mismatch means an efficiency loss and LESS power output. (Also meaning you WON'T blow the speakers running a 16 ohm amp into a suitable 8 ohm cab BTW as the amps power output is reduced.) The output valves do have to work harder though so the main problem with low direction mismatches is that they are hard on your output valves. They will take a lot more wear, but probably won't fail immedaiately unless already weak. If they do happen to fail of course THAT in turn can potentially cause further amp damage. Though with good HT fuse protection this is actually pretty unlikely.

Power output does also drop with high direction mismatches, that is correct. All mismatches, low and high, lead to less efficient running and less power output!

The real big danger for the amp itself though (specifically the output transformer - the most expensive bit of your amp!) is going into a too high impedance load.

What is too high? Well, most valve amps (with healthy valves and output transformers) will survive a mismatch within the (low to high) range of 1/2 to 2X the correct matching impedance. (So 8 ohm amp into 16 ohm cab is just about okay - you will indeed almost always get away with doing that.) Go much above 2X though and especially at high power output levels you risk suddenly inducing very high 'flashback' voltages in the OT. That is what can cause breakdown of the insulation of the windings = transformer burnout.

Remember you can safely turn on and turn up a solid state amp with no speaker attached. It'll sit quite happily all day like that. Short circuit the speaker output though and you'll burn out the output transistors before you even have time to start to think about swearing. Exact opposite of valve amps.


Like I said this is a very common misconception. I think there are a couple of main reasons for it.

Firstly, as RyanWasHere says the rules for valve and solid state amps are very different - basically opposite from each other. People sometimes don't realise that, or if they do they may mistakenly think they are reading about one type of amp when the discussion was really about the other. Reading in context there is vital.

Secondly, I think people often mistake 'high impedance load' for a 'high amp load' - again wrong - and may misread things not realising the difference.
Think about the situation with a typical solid state amp. Fact: the lower the impedance it runs into the more power it tries to deliver into it. This means an increased current demand, so a low impedance load is actually a harder load for the amp to run. (To do so it needs much higher current rated power supplies and output components.)
And in the opposite case a high impedance load is in fact a much easier load for the amp to run as the current demand is reduced. The highest impedance of all is the NO LOAD situation!!!
Very very easy to get confused there, but it is important:
A high amp load = low impedance, an 'easy' amp load = high impedance, no load at all = near infinite impedance.

Previous rant (as Andy H.) on exactly this:
http://forum.orangeamps.com/viewtopic.php?t=8703

A couple of the Gear Page forum links I listed there don't work any more. So here are a couple that still do in their place:
Basic valve amp / speaker mismatching 'rules'. Post #6 here:
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... adid=67069

*Don't believe me about valve amp surviving having their outputs shorted out? Fender valve amps usually have shorting jack sockets fitted to their speaker outputs! Posts #5 and #6 here:
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... p?t=126001


The really important point guys, and the reason I spend a lot of time on this stuff here, is not that these misconceptions are wrong. (There are much worse things than simply being wrong.) It is that they are REALLY DANGEROUS for valve amps!
Don't go risking your valve amps output transformer thinking running into high impedances is okay.
It isn't okay!!!



Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

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Nork
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Post by Nork » Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:46 pm

i wondered when andy would pipe in.
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Happy Face
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Post by Happy Face » Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:04 pm

Well explained Andy.

I think people get confused about just what the load is when no speaker is plugged in. Intuitively you might think, "Ah, that's no load..." rather than an infinite load. It sure confuzzled me at first.

a.hun
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Post by a.hun » Sun Aug 23, 2009 6:32 am

Happy Face wrote:Well explained Andy.

I think people get confused about just what the load is when no speaker is plugged in. Intuitively you might think, "Ah, that's no load..." rather than an infinite load. It sure confuzzled me at first.
Yeah, you really need to watch out for that little word 'impedance'. A 'high impedance load' and 'no load' (= no speakers connected) can be one and the same thing.
Definitely confuzzing...


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

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