I'm making a cabinet for a 100w stereo (50w per channel) hybrid amp. I got a good deal on Celestion G12 50w speakers but the only catch is that they were 16ohm speakers and my amp has 8 ohm outputs. At the price I got the speakers, I thought that I could just wire them in parallel to cut the impedence down to the 8 ohms that I need and live with a mono speaker cabinet. But now I'm getting greedy! Does anyone have a SIMPLE design for an impedence matching curcuit that I could use? I've looked around and found lots of theory discussions on it but no practical info. I'm a med student and not an engineer, so I need some simple instructions. Thanks!
Matching my 8 ohm amp to 16 ohm speakers.
- Thread starter DocJDG
- Start date
It's not a problem.
Solid state (which I assuming is what your amp is) doesn't mind 16 ohm impedances (for that matter, tubes absolutely love 16 ohm speakers, so you're covered either way). Use 'em as is. It won't break anything. Using 16 ohm speakers on an amp rated for 8 ohms halves the rated wattage. Don't worry about it. The bottom line is whether you've got enough power (regardless of what impedance your speaker is) to get to your normal listening volume.
Grey
Solid state (which I assuming is what your amp is) doesn't mind 16 ohm impedances (for that matter, tubes absolutely love 16 ohm speakers, so you're covered either way). Use 'em as is. It won't break anything. Using 16 ohm speakers on an amp rated for 8 ohms halves the rated wattage. Don't worry about it. The bottom line is whether you've got enough power (regardless of what impedance your speaker is) to get to your normal listening volume.
Grey
Doc, you should have no problems driving 16 ohm speakers with an 8 ohm amplifier. In fact the amp will have much lower impedance, much less than 1 ohm usually. You will not get the specified full output from the amp and it will usually run cooler. The output loss probably won't be noticeable.
Things do change a little if you are using a valve amp, if this is the case I still can't see a problem.
Problems can arise when driving a 4 ohm speaker with an amp that is designed for 8 ohms only.
Regards WALKER
Gee Grey it's the quick or the redundant post around here isn't it.
Things do change a little if you are using a valve amp, if this is the case I still can't see a problem.
Problems can arise when driving a 4 ohm speaker with an amp that is designed for 8 ohms only.
Regards WALKER
Gee Grey it's the quick or the redundant post around here isn't it.
