Wiring a head to a 212 combo

C

constant mesh

New member
I have an amp head I want to try out, but I don't have a dedicated cab for it. I was thinking of using my 212 combo loaded with two seventy-80 Celestions, 80W@8 Ohm each. The head is 50W and it's got one 16ohm and two 8 ohm speaker outs.

My combo has the wires dangling out of the amp housing, so I will have to make my own cord. Can use regular, quality guitar cable and put two cable shoes on the end and wire it directly to speakers? I was thinking going in series first, putting a jumper between positive (spk1) and negative (spk2) for a total of 16 ohm.

Last question and has probably been answered numerous times - does increasing the speaker load (and output load respectively) mean that only the volume changes? I know that higher the resistance the more the amp has to work to get the sound loud. I am asking this because I can obviously wire the two speaker in series and deliver 16 ohm or I can simply wire one at the time going from two separate 8 ohm channels.
When I was wiring up a friend's TriAxis & simul-class 2:90 to 8 ohms, which was previously wired 2x4 ohms the volume became more controllable, but the overall sound didn't change at all.

Would any of these wiring methods yield better tone or just deliver the difference in volume? I am only asking this to prevent my windows from blowing out. Would 16ohms give me more subtle volume control than running it 2x8ohms? How does an amp run two separate outs - parallel, series or completely independable?

Thanks, guys!
 
Re: Wiring a head to a 212 combo

Don't use guitar cable for speakers. Guitar cable is shielded, and you should not use shielded cable for speakers. Use a non-shielded figure-8 type cable or two wires twisted together.
 
Re: Wiring a head to a 212 combo

Thanks, man! Would 17 AWG stranded be enough?

I assume the jack plug is wired like for every other application, positive goes to the tip, negative goes to ground? Or should stereo plugs be used?
 
Re: Wiring a head to a 212 combo

if you're wiring in series, then + (tip) goes to + on spkr 1, - on spkr 1 goes to + on spkr 2, and - on spkr 2 goes to - (sleeve).

17AWG should be fine. I prefer to use 16 or 14AWG for cabs though, especially if it's a higher powered head (50W+)
 
Re: Wiring a head to a 212 combo

I just rang up my friend that works at the GC, he gave me the 13 AWG speaker cable, just hooked it up to some cable shoes and a guitar jack, we are rockin', alright!

I wired it 2x8ohms since this amp has two separate outs @8 ohm. The volume is just fantastic, dialing at 6 or 7 on higher drive setting shakes the house.

Thanks for the help, guys!
 
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