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16 Ohm Cabinet?

#4
If your amp is solid state, 16 ohms wont hurt anything. Using a higher than minimum impedance load will lower the maximum output potential of the amp. Some also feel there can be sonic tradeoffs as well.

The red flag for me here is that VERY few bass cabs are 16 ohm. Actually almost none. Guitar cabs are rarely a good idea for bass, and 16 ohm guitar cabs aren't uncommon. Be sure that if it's a deal you "cant pass up " that it is actually a bass cab.
 
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#7
The only 16 ohm bass cab I've so far encountered is my Eden EX112.

Works good as a practice cab, but it's kind of a pain to use in conjunction w/ other cabs "correctly" since they seem to almost always be 8 or 4 ohms. It was cheap & sounds fairly decent by itself so I don't complain too much.
 
#8
Marshall 300W 412’s can be switchable 4 or 16 ohms mono, or 8 ohms stereo. Ampeg had 16 ohm cabinets, intended to be used in pairs. That’s where you typically see 16 ohm cabinets.

But maybe the online cab that’s for sale has the impedance listed incorrectly.
 
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#12
I have an old bass series Marshall 4x12 cabinet that is (was) 16 ohm. The original Celestion 12” speakers were only rated 75 watts each, so I suppose the cabinet would be rated at 300 watts when loaded with four of the original speakers. It was designed to be used with a second 4x12 cabinet that was also 16 ohms for a combined impedance of 8 ohms to be driven by a Super Bass head. Sort of a Lemmy rig...
 
#13
The B-25B was an odd duck at 16 ohm. The matching 2 x 15 was, but I went through the process years ago of trying to find a smaller cab with a 16 and it was painful. It's not common for bass. The ironic thing was the B-15S which was basically the same thing was 8 ohm.
 
#15
Wasnex said:
I looked through the Celestion speaker selector and I believe the highest wattage available in a 16 ohm 412 would be 600W; not that I think it would handle anywhere close to that much power below 100hz.

G12H-150 Redback
Click to expand...

I would think that at 50Hz, the power handling of that speaker would be roughly 200 watts RMS.

I recall Xmax being around 1mm, not a bass speaker.
 
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#18
BassmanPaul said:
Again back in the day one would use the same model of Marshall cabinet for bass or guitar. It those days in the UK cabinets often standardized at 16Ω whilst in the US it was 8Ω.

Actually the UK was more 15Ω, 7.5Ω and 3.75Ω.
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Back in the day there weren't 500 watt amps either.
 
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#20
chadface said:
I have a 16 ohm 2x10.

Actually it's a 4 ohm cab that I rewired to sit atop a 4x10 :)
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I don't know much about historical cabs/cab standards, but I was going to say that this (5.3 Ohm, modular 6x10) would be a good use for a 16 Ohm cab (and the cab would be easy enough to put back to 4 Ohms if you needed or wanted to, later).

If you had a relatively powerful amp and wanted to take out just the 2x10 for a small gig, it would also allow you to run the 2x10 more safely.

As to the specific cab in the OP, more info is needed about the cab and the intended use to say much.
 

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