Speaker wiring ?

[Cazmarzak]

I have a little Peavy amp that sounds real good for practicing, but I blew the Speaker in it.

Ho do I wire the speaker wires to a 1\4 inch plug so that I can hook it up to my 4x12?

[PUCKBOY99]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

***DISCLAIMER: I'm no pro, so consider this a bump***

Does the little Peavey have an impedence switch....can you switch ohm loads?

The 4x12 is probably wired at 16ohms so if you can switch the amp to 16ohm(or whatever the speaker cab is), I would imagine you could disconnect the wires from the speaker terminals, solder on a male 1/4" plug, plug into the 4x12 & have at it.

Hope it works for you!!!

[Cazmarzak]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

I just checked the speaker that was in the amp and it is 3.2 ohms What kind of deal is that

So does that make the amp 3.2 ohms, and if so what happens if I run that into a 16 OHM Cab?

[PUCKBOY99]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

On the back of your 4x12, there should be a badge type thing saying how it's wired...2/4/8/16/ohms...3.2 is beyond my grasp.

Artie...Lew...anyone, help a brother out????

[Cazmarzak]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

Yea, my cab is 16 ohms.

[Kent S.]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

What model Peavey is it? 3.2ohms is the DC resistance, which is lower than the impedance (impedance varies with frequency, and the listed impedance is only *nominal*) ... off hand I'd guess it's a 4ohm speaker (this assumes that the speaker's voice coil is not damaged ... see below)... but that doesn't make sense for a couple of reasons (don't ask, it's just the way Peavey does things) ... is it one of those funky Blue Marvel speakers that's rated at 6ohms, they do that with some of their small stuff.
If the speaker is blown, well you might not get much of a reading if part of the voice coil is shorted ... BTW what do you mean it's blown? No sound comes out period?
16ohms won't hurt anything, although you won't get as much power, and if it's a practice amp, I wouldn't run it wide open.
You'd be better off wiring your cabinet for 8ohms though, depends on what's in the cabinet.
Anyway, take the wires that connect to the speaker, and make one the tip, and one the sleeve of a 1/4 mono phone jack, drill a hole, mounted it and you're done. [b] Use a phone jack that has an insulated bushing, so that the body of the jack DOES NOT connect to the chassis, thereby connected the sleeve connection to the chassis[b] ... This is the safest, most error proof way to do this). Do not run the amp without a load, or shorted (i.e. make sure those two wires don't touch each other {or anything else}, and always run the amp with a cabinet connected to it). Do that and you're done, and oh yeah, use speaker cable only...There's your answer.

[Cazmarzak]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

Kent,

It's a Peavy Rage. It is one of those Blue Marvel Speakers and it says 3.2 ohms right on it, I didn't get that from a reading.

My Speaker Cab can be switched to 8 ohms.

I though that only tube amps had to have a load connected to them at all times?

Also when you were talking about mouning the jack, did you mean a female jack and then just use a speaker cord? I was just gonna wire it with a male plug and go right into the cab.

So running the little 3.2 or what ever the ohmage the amp is, wont hurt anything going int o the 16 ohm, or 8oms on the speaker cab?

[Kent S.]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

Kent,

It's a Peavy Rage. It is one of those Blue Marvel Speakers and it says 3.2 ohms right on it, I didn't get that from a reading.

I must have been thinking of the Envoy 110 then, I know one of them has 6ohms ... 4 to 8ohms and you should be fine ...

My Speaker Cab can be switched to 8 ohms.

Cool, 4-8ohm speakers wired series-parallel will give you 8ohms, ...
4-16ohm speakers wired in parallel will give you 4ohms, a better match in this case; However 4-16ohm speakers wired in series-parallel would give you 16ohms ... stay away from that either go 8ohms, or 4 ohms, until you can replace the speaker with a 4 ohms speaker (which is what that is apparently, don't know why they are calling it by it's DCR, but whatever).

I though that only tube amps had to have a load connected to them at all times?

Wrong! SS will put up with it longer, but that power has to go somewhere.
A small low wattage amp might not give you any problem for a while, but it will if you keep at it.
I've seen guys burn up 100W SS amps by recording direct with the speakers unplugged.

Also when you were talking about mouning the jack, did you mean a female jack and then just use a speaker cord? I was just gonna wire it with a male plug and go right into the cab.

Well, yeah you can do that, I just didn't know if you wanted to make it a permanent deal, like mounted the Rage into a box as a small low powered preamp, then you could plug into a cabinet with it. Then unplug it, and throw it in a gig bag later. You're talking about wiring the leads that go straight to the Rages speaker (RIP) into a speaker cable that plugs into the cabinet ... yeah, you can do that (hardwired cable to Rage).

So running the little 3.2 or what ever the ohmage the amp is, wont hurt anything going int o the 16 ohm, or 8oms on the speaker cab?

3.2 is the impeadnce of the speaker (or so you siad) not the amp, I'm guessing the amp wants to see a 4ohm speaker, so ...
I wouldn't do 16 ohms, 8 or 4 would be your target.
The amps wants to see 4ohms, it will live with 8, just want deliver quite as much power (let's face it, a 15 watt amp, and asking it to deliver real volume, ain't going to happen ...practice amp or not, invest in an Envoy 110 (no FX loop, but headphone, and channel switching and reverb on-off via footswtich), or even a Studio 112 (has an effects loop, switchable channels and reverb via footswitch, and power compression, external speaker jack, but no headphone). Keep it well ventialted and don't expect to much from it and you shouldn't have any problems, remember though, they are only cheap practice/bedroom amps ... need anything more then you'll have to move up to a bigger and more feature rich amp.

[dc_mally]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

wouldnt the best solution to be just replace the speaker in the combo?? remember you cant polish a turd. who wants to lug a 4x12 cab arround for a little combo?? you could juse get a 4 ohm speaker and cram it in and bobs your uncle.

[Kent S.]

Re: Speaker wiring ?

wouldnt the best solution to be just replace the speaker in the combo?? remember you cant polish a turd. who wants to lug a 4x12 cab arround for a little combo?? you could juse get a 4 ohm speaker and cram it in and bobs your uncle.

I think he means in the meantime while he waits for a replacement speaker, but yeah, I'd just replace the speaker ... I'll bet that Pyle might have a 4ohm little monster, I think they make 'em in 8". I would go Peavey replacement before Rat Shack ... although, if he could swing a Fender 8" champ speaker, cost more, but probably be better than the Peavey ... then again I don't think they make them in 4 ohm. ... Anybody know what the Fender Champ (well frontman or whatever they call it) series uses now?