Laney GH50L Ohms question

wildandcrazy

Hey everyone, 

I just purchased a Laney GH50L head, and have a Marshall 1960a cab which runs at 16 ohms. 

Would run the head through the 16 ohm mono jack to match the cab? I'm confused re: impedance and which ohms to run. I don't want to blow the head, and I'm not getting a clear answer online in different forums. 

MattBanshee

Match the impedance wherever possible. In your case, put the amp's 16 ohm output into the cab's 16 ohm (mono) input.

wildandcrazy

Thanks. I thought it was that, but I wanted to be sure. I appreciate your reply! 

ICBM

Laney are one of the best companies for making it quite simple to understand, unlike most which just give you two jacks and an impedance selector, or a couple for each impedance, and leave you to work out how the jacks are connected and what the rules for adding more than one cab are.

Don't be too worried - impedance matching isn't quite as critical as a lot of the popular myth says. You won't blow your amp's transformer if you accidentally run it at the wrong impedance - there's really no risk unless you're absolutely thrashing the living daylights out of it. If you're running the amp a fair way below full power it's not critical  - all it will usually do is affect the tone a bit and give you slightly less power than a correct match.

Also in the popular myth category is the idea that you can run the amp into a higher impedance than it's set for, but not a lower one. It's actually exactly the other way round - a valve amp is safer with too low a load than too high. This idea comes from solid-state amps, which have a *minimum* impedance rather than a *matching* impedance.

In fact it's very rare for a valve amp to be bothered by a 2 to 1 mismatch in either direction. It's a good idea to avoid 4 to 1 - 16-ohm amp into 4-ohm cab, or the other way round - if you can though. Be careful with your Marshall cab if it's one with the two jacks and the mono/stereo switch - it's relatively easy to connect these wrong if you're in a hurry.

wildandcrazy

Yeah, I keep my Marshall cab on the mono setting as I'm only using one 4x12. Great information, though. I had my last amp (JCM 2000 TSL 100) for 15 years before it crapped out on me. 

Another thing I ran into is the GH50L doesn't have a reverb effect built in. Any good recommendations? I have a Fuzz War currently. Didn't need a reverb option until now. My main project is a heavier punk band if that matters. 

ICBM

wildandcrazy said:

I had my last amp (JCM 2000 TSL 100) for 15 years before it crapped out on me.

You did well .

wildandcrazy said:

Another thing I ran into is the GH50L doesn't have a reverb effect built in. Any good recommendations?

Boss RV-5 or 6 if you don’t need anything more specialist. Put it in the FX loop if you want it to sound like an amp with onboard reverb.

wildandcrazy

Cool, yeah, that's another thing I need to get used to is running the pedals through the effects loop. It's there a difference in clarity between using the effects loop v running pedals through in main guitar input? I tried a Rat pedal with a clean drive - seems to be a nice fit. between the Rat, the fuzz war and a reverb, should be set? 

ICBM

wildandcrazy said:

Cool, yeah, that's another thing I need to get used to is running the pedals through the effects loop. It's there a difference in clarity between using the effects loop v running pedals through in main guitar input? I tried a Rat pedal with a clean drive - seems to be a nice fit. between the Rat, the fuzz war and a reverb, should be set? 

Yes, there will be with the reverb, but don't put the Rat and the fuzz in the loop. Anything with large amounts of gain or distortion must go in front of the amp or it can make the amp unstable.

wildandcrazy

Ah, gotcha. That makes sense. Thanks for all your help. Hell, I guess I have another question - any good long-duration loop pedals?