Speaker Wiring for guitar cabs - Series Vs Parallel (Including Audio Examples) 

Hop Pole Studios Adam would 2 16 ohms speakers in series be safe to run my 16 ohms tube amp into ?

@@dunboozin 16+16=32, then blow up

I heard the same here. For metal riffs, series sounds more violent.

I think you nailed it. Parallel = damped and chunky, with bright highs. Series = mids galore, looser.

My Carvin MTS 3212 combo has two 8 ohm speakers. Parallel (4 ohm) is tighter, scooped, with cutting highs. Series (16 ohm) is looser, with a distinct upper mid bite and highs that tend toward chimey/gritty rather than strident. I prefer series, as it's just fuller sounding overall.

a contrario, i prefere in parallele, that sound deeper and cleaner to my ears, but it's a question of taste :)

Disagree, most Amp techs say you can go up one or down one, ie: if your Amp has only an 8ohm out, your safe with a 4ohm or 16ohm cab, but if Amp only has 16ohm out, 8ohm cab is OK, 4ohm shouldn’t be used

The wattage is shared across all speakers, so it would be 50 each. Having said that, this is maximum power ratings which you will likely never be operating near- but also if a speaker were to fail and go open circuit, the load would change to 16 ohms so the wattage and current would be lower. Tone would suffer because the power amp then wouldn’t be matched to that speaker load, but then since you already blew a speaker pristine tone would be the least concern in that situation… Also keep in mind that speaker power ratings are simple ratings for continuous operation to cover the manufacturer in case of safety issues, more often than not a speaker isn’t being operated at that level continuously (musical output being very dynamic) and they can also usually handle a lot more than their rating for short periods. It’s more about long term heat dissipation than anything else

@Chief Thundercock the impedance switches are there to keep things nearly the same. they are protection switches, not meant to enhance sound, therefore you're not actually taking advantage of parallel wiring (more power drawn by the woofers) or taking advantage of series wiring (lower distortion at high power, but requires more power to achieve the same SPL). if you have an amp stable to 4ohms that is also sufficiently powerful to drive 8ohm (or 16ohm in this case) loads, then the switch should always be left in the 4ohm position if you want to really see the different acoustic responses of series vs parallel wiring. the only thing you would need to adjust is the volume knob up when testing the higher impedance setup. then we could really get an idea if sound quality/tonality changes with impedance changes, since impedance will affect the crossover characteristics as well. obviously i'm coming more from the audio speaker world, but the same principles apply. there is a similar impedance switch found on many receivers and the consensus is to leave it at the lowest setting, as it's only function is to reduce current draw (and reduce warranty claims), which in turn reduces performance. this all assumes an amplifier which is stable at 4ohms. i am also assuming that this impedance switch isn't also switching to different impedance-specific crossovers, in which case it would useful and disregard everything i suggested. lol.

You could wire all your 4 ohm speakers in series to make it a 16 ohm cab, which would work fine

Maybe you both are wrong because the speaker cabinet is wired to 4 ohm and therefore the speakers have be 16 ohm wired in allparallel mode. To get 16 ohm for the cabinet you have to wire 2 pairs of speakers in series and these two pairs in parallel. A lot of diagrams out there.

You should try 22 guage. Jk, one of my cabs had really thin wires in it. No idea as to why it was set up that way.

You've got your maths backwards I think here, there is no 8 ohm output option in series vs parallel for 2 speakers

@@adamsteelproducer that funny mojotone just did it for me

Hey- yes that’s right if you have 2 V30s, parallel would make them 8 ohms

@@adamsteelproducer thanks brother I really appreciate that subscribe to your channel maybe I can learn some more stuff LOL catch you later

Yes wire them in series and use the 16 ohm output

sparalliesel

After watching this video I'd say it's whatever gives you the correct impedance

You can’t, simple as that. Sorry.

Time for new speakers. Thanks for quick reply.

Why, do you have an amp that only works with 8 ohms? Or is it 8 ohm minimum, in which case 16 ohm would be fine?

I understand it's possible to miss match amp ohms with speaker ohms, but, i wanted more flexiblity to reduce speaker ohms.

Literally just run a positive wire to the positive tab of each speaker and a negative wire to the negative tab of each speaker. Nothing could be easier.

@@jegr3398 thanks, but I solved this problem 11 months ago

@@pillarsofserpents That's good to hear eRic 👍

Hey - if it’s a 4 ohm load your amp should be set to 4 ohms. Keep it simple! 👍

@@adamsteelproducer thank you very much brother you have you a great day and keep picking

No just connect one speaker output, set the V3 to 8 ohm and you’re done. There are two outputs to give you the option, but it’s not necessary to use both so keep it simple.

Awesome, that’s how I hooked it up initially to test the amp. Just wanted to make sure it was excepting the correct amount (ohms) with the correct connection and not doing anything harmful to the amp. Thanks for the rapid response, love your channel btw 👍🏽

It’s simple maths- if your cab has options for 16 or 4, the only possible way to get both options is to have 8 ohm speakers. Two of them In series- 8+8- 16 ohms. Two in parallel - 4 ohm load

Hop Pole Studios hmmmmmm ok that's what I was thinking too... I didn't see any wires connecting the 2 speakers, so I assume they're wired together somehow at the speaker jack? Guess I'll take a look inside... what is your opinion on running in 16 ohms or 4ohms? Do you think there's a difference in sound or do you have a preference?

Exactly yes! This is how a lot of cabinets are wired :)

This is what I just wrote. Two 4 ohm speakers in series would be 8 ohms, same as two 16 ohm in parallel. In this test you are hearing the difference in the output transformer taps, not the speakers. But different impedance speakers sound different. If you look at the resource chart on Celestion’s website they show the 8 ohm speaker’s curve.

It means it’s wired in parallel as a 16 ohm load. Use the 16 ohm output on your amp to one of those jacks and ignore the other one unless you plan to chain 2 cabs together

@@adamsteelproducer you’re the best!! Thank you sir!

Hi Vishnu! It’s really up to you- if you prefer the sound of 8 ohm speakers over 16 ohm speakers (I did another video about this with V30s) then it’s entirely your choice. 32 ohms wouldn’t blow your amp up, it just wouldn’t sound right. Too low an impedance is where danger lies! Have fun!

That could be that your 10 inch speakers have a lower sensitivity, or that the 16ohm rap provides less current so less volume. Just turn your amp up to match

@@adamsteelproducer thanks

It doesn’t sound any different, since the amp makes the speakers move back and forward. The only time it can be an issue is with 2 cabs plugged into the same amp, wired opposite ways. In this case, they can sound hollow and out of phase- but no damage will happen.

@@adamsteelproducer false alarm. I watched closely with lantern and found positive labeled in speaker as +. It has a white cable so i think it is correctly plugged

Yes but the best way would be a 8 ohm cab. All is ok unless under 8ohm.

Not really, impedance and resistance are different measurements. It’s possible but you need really high power rates resistors so they don’t overheat and blow up

Hey- I’ve just read the manual for that amp. If you have an external cab with 2 16 ohm speakers, you MUST wire them in parallel to create an 8 ohm load. Also when you plug this in, it will disable the internal speaker, there is no way to run them all at the same time.

thanks for your answer Hop Pole, my thoughts was to bring another jack to the AMP, thats connect the intern speaker with the Cap (Cap in serial). my thoughts is : Internal Speaker 8ohm + Serieal 16 ohm : 8 ohm. i'm wrong? With the normal External Speak Jack the connection to the internal Speaker is disconectet, thats why it will mute. so i want to soldering a permanent connetion to another Jack

Yeah no- that’s wrong. Anything plus 8 ohm= some other number. In parallel here I think it would work out as 12 ohm. It’s a solid state power section so it wouldn’t be damaged- but it might not sound at its best

Si, pero que ningún parlante tenga unos watts inferior al del amplificador. Si el amplificador es de 50w, el parlante de menos watts tiene que ser mínimo de 50w.

​​@@xavibsa This is not true. You multiply the lowest wattage speaker by the number of speakers to get your total cabinet wattage. This number must be equal or higher than the wattage of your amp. You can definitely have a 25W speaker in a cabinet, with other speakers, to use with a 50W amp.

Not true, changing the output impedance on a valve amp uses a different number of winds on the output transformer, which can greatly affect how the valves and the speakers interact.

Sorry 2 16 ohm speakers in series gives me 32 ohms, would my 16 ohms tube amp be safe ?

dunboozin I’m pretty sure that’s fine when the AMP head Is lower so are you going to have a 16 ohm from your amp into a 32 ohm cabinet would be the same positive mismatch I believe. You might just wanna run it by your local tech or you might find more information on an online forum. But I believe that’s right because I use my 8 ohm Head into a 16 ohm cabinet and that’s considered a safe positive mismatch. I wouldn’t wanna mess your ramp up though on my device I think you said but just double check it cheers man

Jackie Scum thanks for replying.

dunboozin no probs cheers. Good luck

dunboozin Double check I think it’s series you want to wire those in. I think it’s two speakers wired in series to make 32 ohm. Sorry I’m just at work and my minds all confused today

It’s not a slight delay, it’s two recordings- which is what we do on records. Being a studio engineer, this is what I would expect to hear on a recording. That’s what I do, that’s the area I’m focused on.

@@adamsteelproducer I think you did well to understand what the OP meant.

No. 1/8 plus 1/8 divided by 2 is 1/4, which you then invert

@@adamsteelproducer lol jk, these calculations brought back my undergrad memories ... Great video btw, couldn't be more simpler than this for one to understand how speakers work with amps... 😀👍

Haha gotcha. Tone doesn’t always translate in the comments. :)

Nope, I replicated this in another video using a solid state amp, it’s the wiring.

can you elaborate on that?

@@luisalextorres I had two 8 ohm Eminence CV75 speakers in series and they're already quite mid heavy to begin with. But, I noticed after switching back to parallel most of the honk was gone and it had more treble, but also less bass and low mid. There's a difference that can be perceived as both an EQ and feel thing going on in that the response feels sloppy in series. The amp I use is a Pv 5150. It is more noticable with distortion than clean tones. It's a lot of buzz words, but this shit is hard to describe. I think the eq thing is analogous with wiring a humbucker pickup in series/parallel.

Perhaps the explanation wasn’t clear enough, but two 8 ohm speakers in parallel is a 4 ohm load.

Hop Pole Studios, I don't doubt your answer, but would like to know the equation.

@@ebeep its just 8 divided by 2, since they're blending the load in a sense. One on its own is 8 ohm, but when it's connected in parallel, those two speakers lose half their own impedance since they're connected to each other, giving each other a current, leaving their impedance at 4 ohms. Think of it like mitosis.

Yes that’s already been covered in the comments. The wording could have been better, but since two 8 ohm speakers wired in parallel is a 4 ohm load the result was correct

​@@adamsteelproducer I see , great video anyways , very helpful , Maybe you could add the info to the video description , since its very important otherwise you could break a speaker or an amp. Dont know if youtube lets you add something to the description. cheers

yes, but when wired in parallel ohms will devided but watt will be added, but in series ohms will added but watt will remain the same.

@@murshedhafiz4where are you getting watts from? We are talking about ohms

If you're frying voice coils with your soldering, you're spending far too long on it, or putting far too much heat in there. I usually use spade terminals for ease of changing speakers out, but it's really not a danger unless your soldering skills are zero

Ha ha ha, no way if you know what you are doing dude

Each to their own.