Speaker Impedance Tonal Difference

Wow, this video is eye-opening. I would love to hear it redone in a less-extreme gain sort of way, with a good ol' greenback and my personal favorite, the Scumback M75.
 
Rdodson":1lkqnpjv said:
Wow, this video is eye-opening. I would love to hear it redone in a less-extreme gain sort of way, with a good ol' greenback and my personal favorite, the Scumback M75.
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That's a lot of speakers to try lol. I might grab some 8Ω Greenbacks to A/B with my current 16Ω ones. But it seems like a lot of work. Maybe in a few months. I won't do any clips though, just want to see for myself.
 
I went the opposite direction. I went from 8 ohm cabs to 16 ohm. I use scumbacks or greenbacks over v30s in all my cabs and I find the 16 ohm iterations sound better to me than the 8 ohm
 
Here is another video. Same results! I'm not usually one to give much credence to this type of thing. I usually think we all over-analyze shit to no end and the differences are small. But with this thing... I actually do hear a rather significant difference. Especially at 1:15, where you hear just the speakers in isolation. That is a huge difference.

 
so, how much of this is the amp, though?

I've definitely noticed lately that I like my Budda with an 8ohm better than a 16 I have. Never gave it much credence since the are also totally different speakers (8ohm Wizard, 16ohm creamback).

just curious if some of it has to do with what the amp likes for a load.
 
Riggins1966":2p46itf5 said:
so, how much of this is the amp, though?
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No clue. But, it doesn't matter if you think about it. Since these tests are done by matching the amp and speaker impedance, you can't recreate the sonic differences without running 8 into 8 and 16 into 16. So, if you think it's the amp and not the speaker, mismatching the loads by running an 8ohm speaker into 16ohm tap would yield a totally different sound. So that's a separate thing.
 
FourT6and2":3f48op3b said:
Riggins1966":3f48op3b said:
so, how much of this is the amp, though?
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No clue. But, it doesn't matter if you think about it. Since these tests are done by matching the amp and speaker impedance, you can't recreate the sonic differences without running 8 into 8 and 16 into 16. So, if you think it's the amp and not the speaker, mismatching the loads by running an 8ohm speaker into 16ohm tap would yield a totally different sound. So that's a separate thing.
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sorry, didn't mean mismatching. The budda has 4, 8 or 16. I just meant running an 8 on 8, 16 on 16, etc.

I know it makes a difference in volume for solid state, I just wondered how much of that translates to tube powered amps.
 
I have players swear by 8 ohm setups, but most use 16 ohms. And the only fair test is with your rig, your amp and the same cabs for both. Friedman and I did this way back. End result, 8 ohm tap had a tiny bit more mids, 16 ohm tap had a little more bass and vintage feel using M75 65w speakers.

We did use the same amp, identical matching cabs, same cable/guitar/etc. and the speakers were all broken in, not brand new.

I guess if we'd been thinking this far ahead, we would have done a video or phone recording, but we only had ourselves and George Lynch there to verify the results.

So take it all with a grain of salt from online recordings, as I found that what you hear in the room with your rig is the best way to judge.
 
Scumback Speakers":24l5ppqc said:
I have players swear by 8 ohm setups, but most use 16 ohms. And the only fair test is with your rig, your amp and the same cabs for both. Friedman and I did this way back. End result, 8 ohm tap had a tiny bit more mids, 16 ohm tap had a little more bass and vintage feel using M75 65w speakers.

We did use the same amp, identical matching cabs, same cable/guitar/etc. and the speakers were all broken in, not brand new.

I guess if we'd been thinking this far ahead, we would have done a video or phone recording, but we only had ourselves and George Lynch there to verify the results.

So take it all with a grain of salt from online recordings, as I found that what you hear in the room with your rig is the best way to judge.
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Well yeah. But these vids are the only things out there that actually verify the anecdotal accounts (i.e. stories on the internet). So it's nice to have some credibility added to the fray. :) It only took about 40-50 years.
 
FourT6and2":3pecocso said:
Well yeah. But these vids are the only things out there that actually verify the anecdotal accounts (i.e. stories on the internet). So it's nice to have some credibility added to the fray. :) It only took about 40-50 years.
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I get that, and I'm sure it helps. Nobody has a pile of speakers in both 8 & 16 ohms to test out just for fun.
 
Thanks for chiming in, Jim!

I have blue frames and black frames (8 & 16ohm respectively) and I thought I heard a difference but then I found out the magnets are different (30 vs 35 oz) so I chalked it up to that.
 
Scumback Speakers":vq0zxt9b said:
FourT6and2":vq0zxt9b said:
Well yeah. But these vids are the only things out there that actually verify the anecdotal accounts (i.e. stories on the internet). So it's nice to have some credibility added to the fray. :) It only took about 40-50 years.
Click to expand...
I get that, and I'm sure it helps. Nobody has a pile of speakers in both 8 & 16 ohms to test out just for fun.
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Celestion does. :)
 
I recall doing this about 10 years ago.. I vaguely remember Preferring 16 ohm drivers for my set up.

I also remember that depending on amp in question, the preference could change.

I don't think there are any hard, If this then that, sorta rules of thumb. As i'm sure there is more involved than just working on the impedance of the drivers that is right for you.

if you have a really resonant cab, you might want 8 ohm drivers to give it some punch. or if you've got a really Dry cab 16 ohm drivers can warm it up a little. that doesn't even get into different Baffle material, how the driver is loaded into the cab.
 
Rdodson":22c06lsd said:
Thanks for chiming in, Jim!

I have blue frames and black frames (8 & 16ohm respectively) and I thought I heard a difference but then I found out the magnets are different (30 vs 35 oz) so I chalked it up to that.
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Hey Ron! Yeah, I had a client compare his 2006 M75's to the current black frame M75's and he decided the new ones with the proper 35 oz magnet sound a little more alive with more presence than the old blue frame M75's with the 30 oz magnet. You're probably hearing the same thing.
 
eternal_idol":bxhn2zda said:
I also remember that depending on amp in question, the preference could change.

I don't think there are any hard, If this then that, sorta rules of thumb. As i'm sure there is more involved than just working on the impedance of the drivers that is right for you.

if you have a really resonant cab, you might want 8 ohm drivers to give it some punch. or if you've got a really Dry cab 16 ohm drivers can warm it up a little. that doesn't even get into different Baffle material, how the driver is loaded into the cab.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this. There are subtle differences introduced all the way through the signal chain that can make big differences at the end. Dave Friedman, George Metropoulos and I were going over all this several years back. Dave & George got into minute stuff, one being if you wire the ground one way on a switch it sounded different than another way...and then all the other stuff, caps/values/resistors/construction of the parts, yada yada yada. And of course transformer differences, negative feedback setups, cable/wire/speakers/cabs...sheesh. You can (and I guess they did!) spend weeks trying stuff out to find the best combination for a particular setup.

At the end of it I think Dave coined his phrase "Everything affects everything."
 
Scumback Speakers":1k7c3gnj said:
eternal_idol":1k7c3gnj said:
I also remember that depending on amp in question, the preference could change.

I don't think there are any hard, If this then that, sorta rules of thumb. As i'm sure there is more involved than just working on the impedance of the drivers that is right for you.

if you have a really resonant cab, you might want 8 ohm drivers to give it some punch. or if you've got a really Dry cab 16 ohm drivers can warm it up a little. that doesn't even get into different Baffle material, how the driver is loaded into the cab.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this. There are subtle differences introduced all the way through the signal chain that can make big differences at the end. Dave Friedman, George Metropoulos and I were going over all this several years back. Dave & George got into minute stuff, one being if you wire the ground one way on a switch it sounded different than another way...and then all the other stuff, caps/values/resistors/construction of the parts, yada yada yada. And of course transformer differences, negative feedback setups, cable/wire/speakers/cabs...sheesh. You can (and I guess they did!) spend weeks trying stuff out to find the best combination for a particular setup.

At the end of it I think Dave coined his phrase "Everything affects everything."
Click to expand...

Quite fitting :D
 
Ok so here's my experience. Same speaker model 16ohm vs 8ohm, yes they sound different, and I generally find myself preferring the 8ohm variant. However that being said, not all ways. You might have a cab/head that just sounds better with the 16ohm.

The absolute largest difference I ever heard was with a Chinese 8ohm Greenback RI, vs a English 16ohm Greenback RI. Now I know the English vs Chinese can be a factor here. The 16ohm had way more highs, upper mids, and brittleness, and the 8ohm was darker, more low mids, and bass. I preferred the 8ohm Chinese over the 16ohm english BY FAR!
 
CrazyNutz":25xauybk said:
Ok so here's my experience. Same speaker model 16ohm vs 8ohm, yes they sound different, and I generally find myself preferring the 8ohm variant. However that being said, not all ways. You might have a cab/head that just sounds better with the 16ohm.

The absolute largest difference I ever heard was with a Chinese 8ohm Greenback RI, vs a English 16ohm Greenback RI. Now I know the English vs Chinese can be a factor here. The 16ohm had way more highs, upper mids, and brittleness, and the 8ohm was darker, more low mids, and bass. I preferred the 8ohm Chinese over the 16ohm english BY FAR!
Click to expand...

I've not tried either the 8ohm Chinese, nor the 16ohm British. But I do have 16ohm Chinese in my Bogner cab and like them. But I've never compared 'em to the 8ohm Chinese version.
 
Not to hijack the thread but I just put lynchbacks which are 8ohm, into my jcm800 2-12 combo. So I wired it up the same way it was and I have to run the amp at 4 ohms. I know if I wire it in series I can run it at 16 ohms. But I wonder if it's worth the trouble?
 
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