quick question re ohms amp vs cabs

grungebob

Sorry to ask but Google ain't my friend today, can I safely use an amp with speaker out of 8ohm into a 16 ohm 4x12 cab? Will it just be a bit quieter or will I naff the amp up?

lustycourtier

Youll lose a tiny bit of high end

grungebob

So it's safe then won't hurt transformer!? Cheers

ICBM

grungebob said:

Sorry to ask but Google ain't my friend today, can I safely use an amp with speaker out of 8ohm into a 16 ohm 4x12 cab? Will it just be a bit quieter or will I naff the amp up?

It will be a bit quieter and you'll lose some bottom-end and possibly a tiny bit of high-end, and it will be a bit 'flatter' dynamically.

No risk to the amp unless you're absolutely thrashing it with some amps. Most will be fine.

grungebob

Cheers, it'll only be at home volumes.

ICBM

grungebob said:

Cheers, it'll only be at home volumes.

Absolutely no risk at all then, and you might not even notice much tone difference. The actual type of speakers becomes far more important than the impedance in that case.

grungebob

Sorry @ICBM can you clarify type of speakers? The cab in question is an eminence lady luck 70 watt loaded 4x12 and the amp I'm looking at is either a mesa ta or mini rec

ICBM

I meant that the minor tone difference of running at the wrong impedance is far less than the tone difference between those speakers and the V30s the amp was designed to use, so it isn't really worth worrying about the tone difference due to the mismatch .

If you are still concerned, you could rewire the cab to 4 ohms (it will have four 16-ohm speakers in, so it will be 4 ohms if you wire them all in parallel) which the amp has an output for.

grungebob

Ok thanks