8ohm 4ohm ?????

[colin23]

what would happen if I plugged an 8 Ohm speaker into a 4 Ohm amp?

[jefrs]

You will have a load mis-match. You will get less power output but it will not actually halve (besides you would turn up more to compensate for the volume loss). What happens depends on the amp.

Solid state, probably ok, they self-adjust to load, power drop to about 70%.

Old Fender, probably ok, they can take a +/-100% mis-match, power drops.

More-or-less any other valve amp will be overloaded, but in the right direction because it is better to put a higher load on than a lower one. The power drops, the valves have to work harder to drive the OT and things will get hotter. If you crank it right up you might blow the output bottles. Most valve amps will tolerate a +50% mis-match.

Better to wire a pair of 8ohm in parallel = 4ohm.

[colin23]

is it possible to wire two 4 Ohm speakers together and still get 4 Ohms or is it only possible to get 8 or 2?

[Eracer_Team]

Series and parallel are the rules can’t avoid them.

 

4 parallel with a 4 = 2

4 series with a 4 = 8.

 

All the speakers I buy are 8ohms.. I can then run two 8’s in parallel and plug into a 4ohm

Or

Run two 8ohms in series and use the 16ohm

Or

Use one 8ohm in the 8ohm

 

Best of every world

[m-theory]

Generally speaking, you want to stick with the load recommended by the manufacturer, HOWEVER, that's assuming that the manufacturer actually chose the most efficient tap and load for the amp. The only way to know that for sure would be to hook it up to a scope, run a test signal into it, and test it with different taps and output loads. Might be that 16ohm taps and 4 ohm load makes the amp happy as a pig in mud. Short of the proper test equipment and/or a tech who's willing to fiddle around with it with you, stick with the manufacturer's recommendations.