CAB OHM QUESTION!

[degenaro]

Courtesy of the Orange manual...

8 & 16 Ohm amplifiers

1X16 Ohm cab connected to the 16 Ohm output
1X8 Ohm cab connected to the 8 Ohm output
2X16 Ohm cabs each connected to one of the 8 Ohm outputs

who said i was arguing? get off the high horse dude. read the original poster's sentence. fuck he owns the amplifier, if he says he has two 8 ohm taps then that is what i am going to go by. im only trying to help here dude

Yes you are arguing...the amp has 2 jacks labeled 8 ohm...nomenclature.
I'm sure you're trying to help but that doesn't negate the fact that you're stating stuff that is factually...simply wrong.

with this info you just posted from the manual you are right. he cant connect anything together at all and only has the option to run one cab or the other or change the speakers. thats it - otherwise he will guarantee a fried secondary/primary output transformer - whichever side is weaker.

HAD i owned an orange amplifier and knew the two plugs are labeled 16 ohms || making 8 total and not two 8 ohms like the original poster said, then it wouldnt all be wrong. simple enough to correct in that post, but dont put the blame on me here

thanks for taking the time to look up the manual and correct the false info the original poster wrote on his own amplifier. i will start doing the same to make sure they arent saying something completely wrong therefore leading off into giving false information again.

I looked up at the manual after I corrected you. I deal with impedance and amps and their nomenclature more than I care to, since my day gig is VP at THD Electronics.

 

[glpg80]

Glpg, you have current and phase confused. I'm not so sure that the lower ohm speakers would draw more current than the higher ohm speakers if you wired them mismatched parallel then series, but even if it did pull more current, it doesn't mean that the complex sin wave audio signal is moving any faster.

has nothing to do with pulling current - i said earlier that they each would pull the same amount of current but due to the electrical impedance wiring differences their voltage would not be the same, therefore when impedance is measured comparing voltage to current (also comparing two different AC's on top of this), they will be slightly different from one another electrically, which also accounts for the amplitude differences as to why the 8ohm speaker is louder and the 16 is not and this the phasing i am talking about.

i want to reiterate this once more - i never will and never have mix different impedance ratio cabinets or speakers connected to a single frequency source. they were designed to be connected to as much of a matched impedance as possible - you will lose efficiency and cause OT stress mixing impedances.

Oh ok, I misread that you said the voltage isn't a problem, but current is. But regardless, I don't see how the speakers could give a flying turd what they're mixed with. That's like saying that you shouldn't put a 250k pot in the same guitar as a 500k pot the entire speaker/cab network is summed as a WHOLE, and that whole is 5.33Ω, which the transformer was not designed to match. Voltage, current, and resistance aside, it's not good for the transformer, nothing more need be said.

i didnt, i said voltage is the problem current is not

its not the speakers that care. phase deals with a frequency compared to a frequency - speakers only convert electrical to mechanical and have different build methods in doing so, which is why they all sound different and have different sensitivities (measured 1W from 1 meter away if recall correctly)

the impedance of a speaker is electrical, not mechanical, so a speaker will only reiterate what it is given.

when changing the volume pot in a guitar you are adjusting the impedance load of the guitar to the amplifier in regards to electrical ground. lower the value, the heavier the load. i tried to explain this to you once before

 

[glpg80]

Courtesy of the Orange manual...

8 & 16 Ohm amplifiers

1X16 Ohm cab connected to the 16 Ohm output
1X8 Ohm cab connected to the 8 Ohm output
2X16 Ohm cabs each connected to one of the 8 Ohm outputs

who said i was arguing? get off the high horse dude. read the original poster's sentence. fuck he owns the amplifier, if he says he has two 8 ohm taps then that is what i am going to go by. im only trying to help here dude

Yes you are arguing...the amp has 2 jacks labeled 8 ohm...nomenclature.
I'm sure you're trying to help but that doesn't negate the fact that you're stating stuff that is factually...simply wrong.

with this info you just posted from the manual you are right. he cant connect anything together at all and only has the option to run one cab or the other or change the speakers. thats it - otherwise he will guarantee a fried secondary/primary output transformer - whichever side is weaker.

HAD i owned an orange amplifier and knew the two plugs are labeled 16 ohms || making 8 total and not two 8 ohms like the original poster said, then it wouldnt all be wrong. simple enough to correct in that post, but dont put the blame on me here

thanks for taking the time to look up the manual and correct the false info the original poster wrote on his own amplifier. i will start doing the same to make sure they arent saying something completely wrong therefore leading off into giving false information again.

I looked up at the manual after I corrected you. I deal with impedance and amps and their nomenclature more than I care to, since my day gig is VP at THD Electronics.

Andy is awsome

dude is extremely smart.

i need to correct my original post before i forget and this guy tries connecting both his cabinets

 

[degenaro]

Courtesy of the Orange manual...

8 & 16 Ohm amplifiers

1X16 Ohm cab connected to the 16 Ohm output
1X8 Ohm cab connected to the 8 Ohm output
2X16 Ohm cabs each connected to one of the 8 Ohm outputs

who said i was arguing? get off the high horse dude. read the original poster's sentence. fuck he owns the amplifier, if he says he has two 8 ohm taps then that is what i am going to go by. im only trying to help here dude

Yes you are arguing...the amp has 2 jacks labeled 8 ohm...nomenclature.
I'm sure you're trying to help but that doesn't negate the fact that you're stating stuff that is factually...simply wrong.

with this info you just posted from the manual you are right. he cant connect anything together at all and only has the option to run one cab or the other or change the speakers. thats it - otherwise he will guarantee a fried secondary/primary output transformer - whichever side is weaker.

HAD i owned an orange amplifier and knew the two plugs are labeled 16 ohms || making 8 total and not two 8 ohms like the original poster said, then it wouldnt all be wrong. simple enough to correct in that post, but dont put the blame on me here

thanks for taking the time to look up the manual and correct the false info the original poster wrote on his own amplifier. i will start doing the same to make sure they arent saying something completely wrong therefore leading off into giving false information again.

I looked up at the manual after I corrected you. I deal with impedance and amps and their nomenclature more than I care to, since my day gig is VP at THD Electronics.

Andy is awsome

dude is extremely smart.

i need to correct my original post before i forget and this guy tries connecting both his cabinets

He sure is...

 

[glpg80]

BTW i have not said it yet but i need to - thanks for the correction Ed on the amplifier itself. like i mentioned before i do not own the amplifier nor have read the literature on them. if the dude asks for help i can only go by what information is given since he owns the amplifier.

i just think its not much to expect that if you own the amplifier, to understand the pluggins on the back from the owners manual before asking an impedance load question.....

it also didnt register as wierd because there are amplifiers that have 4 ohm loads.

 

[Hiatt1991]

Whoa. Sorry about the confusion guys. I didnt mean to start a fight. By taps I meant jacks. Im sorry. I thought thats what it meant. It has two 8 ohm JACKS and one 16 ohm JACK. : )

 

[glpg80]

Whoa. Sorry about the confusion guys. I didnt mean to start a fight. By taps I meant jacks. Im sorry. I thought thats what it meant. It has two 8 ohm JACKS and one 16 ohm JACK. : )

wrong sir, it has 1x16 or 2x16, not 2x8 - as said by Ed Degenaro who looked up the actual user manual specs and corrected me since i was going by your info in the post

 

[ke2]

Rewire the 8 ohm cabinet to utilize only two speakers?

"Example:
2 X 4 Ohm Speaker = 8 Ohm Load
2 X 8 Ohm Speaker = 16 Ohm Load
2 X 16 Ohm Speaker = 32 Ohm Load"

(www.celestion.com)

It will look the part, and you'll have two 16 ohm cabs. One 4x12 and one (effectively) 2x12

 

[degenaro]

Whoa. Sorry about the confusion guys. I didnt mean to start a fight. By taps I meant jacks. Im sorry. I thought thats what it meant. It has two 8 ohm JACKS and one 16 ohm JACK. : )

wrong sir, it has 1x16 or 2x16, not 2x8 - as said by Ed Degenaro who looked up the actual user manual specs and corrected me since i was going by your info in the post

Well maybe together we can rid the world of bad nomenclature in amp labeling...


Here's the deal...and I remember the days when I got my first Mesa and ran my 4x12 off thew 16 ohm jack and the 2x12 off the 8 ohm jack instead of running them off the 2 4 ohm jacks...

The unfortunate naming convention is total load not match to cab which would actually make sense.
Unless the amp has an impedance selector, the majority if not all amps with jacks labeled with specific impedance always end up the same...
1x16 ohm jack for a 16 ohm cab...all good here.
2x8 ohm jacks for either a single 8 or 2 16 ohm cabs
Not applicable with the Orange, but like Mesa...
2x4 ohm jacks for a single 4 or 2 8 ohm cabs.

Mismatches...single 16 and single 8 ohm cab...5.33 ohm...both cabs into the 4 ohm jack.

Do not use a load lower than what the amp is rated for.

Mismatches, and I deal wih this with Hot Plates constantly, simply because most of the time there is no reason to buy more than a single impedance.
Got an 8 ohm Hot Plate or any other 8 ohm attenuator for that matter...here's what's gonna happen...lets assume an amp with either an impedance selector that has 4/8/16 ohm setting or 2x4, 2x8 and a 16 ohm jack...
anyways so...8 ohm Hot Plate with a 4 ohm load...say 2 8 ohm cabs...goes into the 4 ohm jack. 8 ohm cab with 8 ohm Hot Plate, 8 ohm jack of course. 8 ohm Hot Plate with 16 ohm cab...8 ohm jack.

 

[glpg80]

oh......

OHHHHHH........

never owned or used an amplifier with the impedances labeled indifferently and with independent jacks for each speaker, and if it said 2x8 i would assume it meant two 8 ohm inputs, not two inputs totaling 8 ohms load meaning two independent 16 ohm cabinets.

you are correct - nomenclature being a bitch here, that and i dont know by memory the impedance layout of every amplifier known to man. but alas - learn something new every day.

as far as the impedance rules go you dont have to explain them to me personally, but for others it might be helpful on the subject

FWIW the impedance switch makes much more sense than the nominclature of 2x8 for independent jacks, to me i would do it 1x16, 2x16, 2x8, and 1x4 in regards to the rated speaker load impedances that are wired making it easier for the consumer, and not the electrical 2x8 meaning in this case 16||16

 

[degenaro]

oh......

OHHHHHH........

never owned or used an amplifier with the impedances labeled indifferently and with independent jacks for each speaker, and if it said 2x8 i would assume it meant two 8 ohm inputs, not two inputs totaling 8 ohms load meaning two independent 16 ohm cabinets.

you are correct - nomenclature being a bitch here, that and i dont know by memory the impedance layout of every amplifier known to man. but alas - learn something new every day.

as far as the impedance rules go you dont have to explain them to me personally, but for others it might be helpful on the subject

FWIW the impedance switch makes much more sense than the nominclature of 2x8 for independent jacks, to me i would do it 1x16, 2x16, 2x8, and 1x4 in regards to the rated speaker load impedances that are wired making it easier for the consumer, and not the electrical 2x8 meaning in this case 16||16

Wasn't for you...but rather used your post as a jumping off for others. And yes I much prefer a set of parallel jacks and an impedance selector.

 

[Jimmie]

Glpg, you have current and phase confused. I'm not so sure that the lower ohm speakers would draw more current than the higher ohm speakers if you wired them mismatched parallel then series, but even if it did pull more current, it doesn't mean that the complex sin wave audio signal is moving any faster.

has nothing to do with pulling current - i said earlier that they each would pull the same amount of current but due to the electrical impedance wiring differences their voltage would not be the same, therefore when impedance is measured comparing voltage to current (also comparing two different AC's on top of this), they will be slightly different from one another electrically, which also accounts for the amplitude differences as to why the 8ohm speaker is louder and the 16 is not and this the phasing i am talking about.

i want to reiterate this once more - i never will and never have mix different impedance ratio cabinets or speakers connected to a single frequency source. they were designed to be connected to as much of a matched impedance as possible - you will lose efficiency and cause OT stress mixing impedances.

Oh ok, I misread that you said the voltage isn't a problem, but current is. But regardless, I don't see how the speakers could give a flying turd what they're mixed with. That's like saying that you shouldn't put a 250k pot in the same guitar as a 500k pot the entire speaker/cab network is summed as a WHOLE, and that whole is 5.33Ω, which the transformer was not designed to match. Voltage, current, and resistance aside, it's not good for the transformer, nothing more need be said.

Thanks Jake, this is what I was alluding to, (admittedly not doing a very good job at it - long day. different story for a different thread), the total sum value at the jack of the cab is the load the amp sees, I think we can all agree to that? Now I realise you might get some phase-bucking issues between competing impedence values within the cab but its not likely you're going to be causing a considerable amount of negative flux within the circuit to the point of causing enough back EMF to melt-down the output stage of the amp. So long as the minium impedence load requirement of the amp remains constant, the amp will survive.

I wasn't suggesting this as a long term solution, just to assist a fellow musician open up some possibilities.

I enjoy and appreciate all of the thought that has went into this topic, really, it helps push out the cobwebs of my ancient previous career as a field tech. I loved my previous career, traveled all over the three continents of the Americas performing it, just couldn't make a decent living at it.

Jimmie

Thanks and please do school me if my electron theory proves to be incorrect.

 

[iplayloudly]

This thread is giving me a headache.

 

[srinivassa]

Man, sorry I couldn't read all that. Did anybody point out about how those output jacks work? A few heads have jacks like this: 1x16 Ohm, 2x8 Ohm, 2x4 Ohm. The actual correct way to use these jacks is one 16 Ohm cab plugged into 16 Ohm jack, one 8 Ohm cab plugged into 1st 8 Ohm Jack, one 4 Ohm cab plugged into 1st 4 Ohm jack, two 16 Ohm cabs plugged into two 8 Ohm jacks, or two 8 Ohm cabs plugged into two 4 Ohm jacks. No other combinations are valid.

My Epiphone So Cal is like this, and the manual is very clear on this. I was hoping I could plug in a 16 ohm and an 8 Ohm, but it's a no go. If you wanted to be daring with your output transformer, I would maybe plug in a 16 Ohm and an 8 Ohm both into the 4 Ohm jacks. Some heads can handle this 5.33 into 4. The So Cal is not one of those heads. My Egnater head can do the 5.33 into 4, but it is a standard pair of paralleled, switched output jacks.

 

[racerevlon]

Just to state the obvious... the ohm/load ratings are MINIMUMS. So, when you plug a cabinet/load into a 16-ohm jack/tap, the load on that jack needs to have a MINIMUM 16 ohm load. The key here seems to be whether the two 8-ohm jacks are wired series or parallel on the head. Based on the information provided above, the head DOES NOT WANT TO SEE A LOAD BELOW 8 OHMS. Since (as has been noted multiple times) the result of combining an 8 ohm load and a 16 ohm load is 5.333 ohms, this will "Technically" work, but will also kill your output transformer. Upshot==DON'T DO IT. It sucks, but replace the speakers in one of the cabs with different impedance speakers. Most manufacturers make their speakers in both 8 and 16 ohm versions, so it's just a matter of the $$$ and a little wiring.