Using headphone amp as speaker amp

[hugz]

Hey all

Sorry if this is an obvious question. I tried to search but couldn't find any answers. Also i'm a bit of a n00b.

I have a headphone amp which is SET class A tubey. It is a Ming Da MC66-AE and I quite like it as a headphone amp.

It has selections for 32 ohm, 300ohm and 600 ohm. It claims to have 1.5w RMS x 2

This sounds like a possible fun combo with my 96+db/w/m speakers

Is it possible to connect the headphone amp to my speakers or will something break? I'm somewhat worried about the ohmage mismatch. My speakers are 8 ohm. Will this mismatch cause any possible harm? Is there any cheap way to correct it (eg can i just put some big resistors in series?)

I dont really wanna spend lots of money on this (such as buying transformers) because it's just for fun.. but if it would be possible to connect them without damaging them it'd be awesome

Thanks

hugz

 

[kevinkr]

While connecting your speakers is unlikely to cause any real damage the mismatch will result in very low power output and a lot of distortion. Should you use a set of ~24 ohm resistors in series with the speakers you will have no speaker damping at all, and only a 1/4 of the available power will be available to the speakers. Neither option would be likely to sound very good.

If you just happened to have a pair of toroids knocking around with say a pair of 12V secondaries these could be configured as an auto-transformer just by wiring the secondaries in series, connecting the amplifier to the top and bottom of the seriesed windings and connecting the speaker to the bottom and mid point. Mind you the performance depending on the toroids might be anywhere from good to awful - and you could use them in some other project later.. LOL
(Having the primaries on these cores would be non-optimum, but it's quick and dirty.)