Err cab wiring help

[SeraphimTN]

I need my H&K cab to be 16 ohms to match the marshall. Now I opened it up and I'm confused. There are two outputs, on it small and the other has a lil box on it with places to sauter wires. From what I can tell, the top speakers are wired to the speakers below them, then the two bottom one's wired to the outputs. Red wire goes to a place on the small output and the black to the other, with a wire running from the big one to the little one. This confuses the ****ens outta me. Can anybody help? Is it already at 16?

 

[sosomething]

Re: Err cab wiring help

I don't know much about wiring cabs, but I have this to add:

DON'T plug your 16-ohm Marshall into the cab and play until you KNOW the cab is wired for 16 ohms as well. Your cab is probably wired for 8 ohms and that would be a BAD impedance mismatch which would likely result in blowing up your amp.

You may already know that, but I wanted to get it out there while you wait for someone more knowledgeable about cab wiring to chime in.

 

[SeraphimTN]

Re: Err cab wiring help

I don't know much about wiring cabs, but I have this to add:

DON'T plug your 16-ohm Marshall into the cab and play until you KNOW the cab is wired for 16 ohms as well. Your cab is probably wired for 8 ohms and that would be a BAD impedance mismatch which would likely result in blowing up your amp.

You may already know that, but I wanted to get it out there while you wait for someone more knowledgeable about cab wiring to chime in.

Into the cab? I had both cabs running off the head. I tried to take a picture of the wiring and it sucked. Dunno what to do.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Err cab wiring help

Sorry, I hadn't seen you post about buying the cab. I thought you were running a Marshall amp into your H&K cab.

So let me get this straight - you have added a 16-ohm Marshall cab to your 8-ohm H&K rig?

 

[SeraphimTN]

Re: Err cab wiring help

Sorry, I hadn't seen you post about buying the cab. I thought you were running a Marshall amp into your H&K cab.

So let me get this straight - you have added a 16-ohm Marshall cab to your 8-ohm H&K rig?

Yes, pretty sure the H&K is 8 ohms. That's what is says under the jack, but I have no clue if it's been rewired or not since I bought it off Brad Noah of Disciple, there's no telling what he did to it.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Err cab wiring help

do you know what impedance the speakers in the h&k cab are?

 

[SeraphimTN]

Re: Err cab wiring help

do you know what impedance the speakers in the h&k cab are?

8 ohms each.

 

[SeraphimTN]

Re: Err cab wiring help

Well I just eliminated the Stereo jack switch deal and wired it 2 and 2 to the output, and with each speaker being 8, that equals 16 ohms. The Marshall still sounds more quiet though.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Err cab wiring help

If your Marshall is wired for 16 ohms and the H&K is 8 ohms, then your overall load for the 2 cabs in parallel is 5.3 ohms. (Is your head capable of driving a 4-ohm load?) However, in this case 2/3 of the power will go to the H&K and 1/3 to the Marshall. So, yes, the Marshall will be quieter.

Unfortunately, with a mix of 16- and 8-ohm speakers, there's no way to balance the volume among them.

 

[muttonchopsrule]

Re: Err cab wiring help

Unfortunately, with a mix of 16- and 8-ohm speakers, there's no way to balance the volume among them.

this is absolutely true. unless you swap speakers in one of the cabinet, or run only one side of the marshall cabinet, you won't be able to correctly match the impedence, therefor you won't be able to distribute the power evenly between both cabinets.

the 1690 cabs can run in stereo (8 ohms per side), so you could use two speakers from the marshall and all 4 speakers in the H&K cab for a total of 4 ohms (you could maybe improve this my changing the wiring in the 1960 so that in stereo, it would operate with the top two or bottom two speakers, instead of left and right). but that's about the best you could do without swapping out speakers.

 

[SeraphimTN]

Re: Err cab wiring help

this is absolutely true. unless you swap speakers in one of the cabinet, or run only one side of the marshall cabinet, you won't be able to correctly match the impedence, therefor you won't be able to distribute the power evenly between both cabinets.

the 1690 cabs can run in stereo (8 ohms per side), so you could use two speakers from the marshall and all 4 speakers in the H&K cab for a total of 4 ohms (you could maybe improve this my changing the wiring in the 1960 so that in stereo, it would operate with the top two or bottom two speakers, instead of left and right). but that's about the best you could do without swapping out speakers.

I"m confused, so wiring the H and K cab to 16 ohms so both cabs are 16 ohms won't work? Right now that's how they are.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Err cab wiring help

With four 8-ohm drivers in the H&K, you can wire it one of three ways:

Series: 32 ohms
Parallel: 2 ohms
Series/Parallel: 8 ohms

Similarly, you can do the same three things with the Marshall's four 16-ohm drivers:

Series: 64 ohms
Parallel: 4 ohms
Series/Parallel: 16 ohms

With these available combinations, there is no way to balance the power split between the two cabs.

You could swap a pair of drivers between the cabs, but then your mismatch would move. The overall cab volumes would be balanced, but the individual drivers within each cab would be unbalanced.

 

[muttonchopsrule]

Re: Err cab wiring help

I"m confused, so wiring the H and K cab to 16 ohms so both cabs are 16 ohms won't work? Right now that's how they are.

wiring the H&K cab to 16 ohms so it matches the marshall would actually be the perfect solution. however, as Rich_S pointed out, you can't achieve a total impedence of 4 ohms with four 8-ohm speakers.

 

[D-EJ915]

Re: Err cab wiring help

Basically, you can't wire them both to the same impedance, it's impossible.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Err cab wiring help

Just use the Marshall cab by itself. I can just about guarantee that you'll be happy that way.