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advice for a budget cab for my GK BK600 head?

Congaman

Congaman

Feb 7, 2008
43
11
Kentucky
#1
Hey friends, I run a GK Backline 600 head and bought it and a blx210 cab as a rig from a music store in NOLA. It sounded good in the store, but at really low volume. It wasn't until I got home, 500 miles away that I saw that the cab was 8 ohm and the head is 4. I was wondering what recommendations you might have for a good, reliable, but budget-priced cab to go with this head?
Thanks.
 
#4
Seismic Audio and Avatar have good solid bass cabs at very reasonable prices.

BTW - I have run my 8 ohm Accugroove and my 4 ohm Phil Jones cabs together from my Benz-Benz 6.0 (rated at 375w at 8 ohms and 600w at 4 ohms) and they work great and sound great together.

Also, your head should have a power rating at 4 ohms and at 8 ohms. The head doesn't usually require any specific ohmage from the speaker other than a minimum rating (some amps can handle down to 2 ohms and others can't).

Ok, I just looked at the manual for your amp and it says it is rated at 300w at 4 ohms and 180w at 8 ohms. I didn't see anything about whether it can handle 2 ohms or not.

Also, if you connect speakers in parallel, the impedance (ohms) will be lower than either of the speakers by themselves. If connected in series, the impedance (ohms) will increase. For example, as Ricken says, 2 8 ohms cabs will generally give you a 4 ohm load to the amp if connected in parallel. If you connect them in series, it will present a higher impedance (ohms) to the amp. Amps usually have no problem handling higher impedance but you can cause the amp to fail if you present it with too low of an impedance. One more thing...impedance is not a constant, it actually varies at different frequencies.
 
#5
Skunk11 said:
BTW - I have run my 8 ohm Accugroove and my 4 ohm Phil Jones cabs together from my Benz-Benz 6.0 (rated at 375w at 8 ohms and 600w at 4 ohms) and they work great and sound great together.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, I'll keep your username in mind in case your shuttle comes up in the classifieds so I'll know it's been used at 2.67 ohms. :rollno:

Skunk11, I'd either get another 210 or see if you could return the one you have and get an Avatar 4 ohm 212 - that configuration is the smallest that I've found that works as a standalone cab for volume levels I need. The Peavey and the BLX together will eventually fry your BL600, since it will be 2.67 ohms with a 4 ohm minimum load.
 
#6
So if were to buy the Peavey 4 ohm cab and run it and the GK 8 ohm cab together in parallel off the GK Backline 600, would it present the amp with a 6 ohm load? 8 + 4 = 12/2, or would it drop the 8 to 4, and the 4 to 2 ohm? And then, would the output be something between 180w and 300w?
 
#9
Aha! Thanks, Jaco, Skunkll, and Michael. I like the idea of the Avatar 4 ohm 212. It'll get my full 300 w out there. I'll have to sell the BLX 210 -- finances being what they are.... Which Acoustic reissue cabs do you mean, Michael?
 
#10
Jaco who? said:
Thanks for the info, I'll keep your username in mind in case your shuttle comes up in the classifieds so I'll know it's been used at 2.67 ohms. :rollno:
Click to expand...

Hey Jaco who?,

In my defense, please consider the following:

First of all, I think you were saying that somewhat tongue-in-cheek but, whether it was or wasn't, I'm not trying to argue with you or anyone here because I want to keep TalkBass a fun place to visit and share info.

That being said...

I have worked in electronics for over 25 years so I understand the impedance calculation (also there are several excel spreadsheets that you can download that will do the calculations for you). Also, I couldn't find it, but I seem to remember Phil Jones stating that my cabinet is actually rated at 4.8 ohms. If that is correct, the nominal (minimum) impedance that the amp could ever see (with my Accugroove 8 ohm cab connected also) would be 3 ohms.

However, even if the cabinet is rated at 4 ohms, we all know that the ratings are nominal ratings, meaning that it is the lowest impedance that the speaker should ever present to the amp. Also, impedance is not a constant, it varies greatly depending on frequency. Speakers often have impedances that vary anywhere from 4-40 ohms, again depending on frequency.

I haven't looked at the impedance charts for my speaker cabs but I highly doubt that my amp is ever being presented with an impedance lower than 4 ohms, though it is possible. However, both speakers would have to have their lowest impedances at exactly the same frequencies for the amp to be presented with the lowest possible impedance (2.66 or 3 ohms, depending on the PJ cab rating) and this is highly unlikely.

Finally, I do not regularly run both of my cabs (Accugroove and Phil Jones - actually I own a few others, too) at the same time. This was just something I did for a couple of practice sessions. It sounded great, too, btw.

So, in closing, I doubt that my amp has suffered any harm whatsoever and I don't have any plans of selling it anyway. I plan on keeping it and using with my Accu as my smaller, portable rig and I plan on getting a GBE 750 (or 1200) and an Accugroove Whappo, Jr. (or, ideally, a Bill Dickens signature 212 cab) and using these as my main rig that stays permanently set up at my church.

Thanks for the info and the warnings are good for noob's.

:bassist:
 

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