4ohm head to a 6ohm cab

[Precision345]

Hi,

I know this has been thread'd to death and I'm sorry but can I run a 6ohm cabinet with a 4ohm head or will it damage the cab?

 

[basscooker]

your cab wouldn't care. most solid state amps wouldn't care either. a tube amp might care alot. more details, please. the biggest concern is with dropping the amp below its minimum. but a tube amp wants you to set it for the matching ohms, so i can't say what a tube amp set at 4 ohms would think. probably not recommended.

 

[B-string]

Yes you can and no it won't damage either by load impedance alone.

 

[B-string]

BTW the cab "loads" the amp.

 

[basscooker]

what amp and cab? just for posterity.

hey, b-string, what about a tube amp set for 4 ohm? i'm curious about that.
btw are there 6 ohm cabs around?

 

[Precision345]

thanks for the input guys

your cab wouldn't care. most solid state amps wouldn't care either. a tube amp might care alot. more details, please. the biggest concern is with dropping the amp below its minimum. but a tube amp wants you to set it for the matching ohms, so i can't say what a tube amp set at 4 ohms would think. probably not recommended.

The cabinet is a Sunn 610L cabinet and the head is a Traynor Dynabass 400h

 

[B-string]

what amp and cab? just for posterity.

hey, b-string, what about a tube amp set for 4 ohm? i'm curious about that.
btw are there 6 ohm cabs around?

First understand a speaker's impedance is not a fixed value. The impedance should be preceded by "nominal".
While I would not recommend running a 8 ohm nominal load on a 4 ohm tap, the 6 ohm nominal is not that far off on the plate load curve and is probably actually less than a 6 ohm nominal unless some very special winding driver's were spec'd for that one cab line.

 

[Precision345]

Ok, I get what your saying. Thanks for your wisdom B-string!

 

[Son of Bovril]

4 ohm minimum head with a 6 ohm cab = Perfectly fine

 

[Munjibunga]

As long as we're talking solid state or hybrid, no problem.

 

[Precision345]

Yes, the traynor dynabass head is hybrid so should be just fine?

 

[Muttleybass]

No issues, except you might lose just a little wattage. Probably not enough to notice.

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

SS head will run it just fine. A tube power amp will run it just fine but it will eventually blow a power tube, not an if but a when.

And yes, there are 6 ohm cabs around, I have only seen 610's in 6 ohm but I imagine there are more. My old Markbass 610 was 6 ohm and I used to run it with an SVT-CL.

OP the dynabass is SS, so it will be fine. The dynabass might have pre-amp tubes but it is definitely not a tube amp.

 

[BassburyAC]

Christ thank you all. Literally been losing what little hair I have left searching for answers. Attempted a crash course in electronics a few times today and this has saved me a ballache.

Trying to figure out where to go with my Hartke Kilo, looking for a bigger cab as opposed to a 410 or my current 2 x 210 (which im 99% sure ive blown one of, it has also been suggested as the crossover but thats well out of my league.)