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[selowitch]

Thank you so much for the detailed response!

It turns out that I am a much better musician than I am an engineer or electrician, and all this talk of ohms and wattage is a little over my head. With that said, I think I am attracted to the GR208 because I love that it's lightweight and narrow (I'm guessing it's easy to lug up and down a flight or two of stairs—that's crucial for me). The question for me is what head to pair it with. Will the GR208 function well with just a head added, or do I need a second speaker cabinet? I am hoping to just use the head and the GR208 for small gigs and maybe a pair of GR208s for larger gigs. I may or may not be using a GR amp but I am guessing that I will run at 350w or so with one speaker and 500w with two.

No, you pick either 4-Ohms or 8-Ohms for the cabinet and the appropriate driver(s) are loaded into the box at the time of manufacture. The advantage for some players in choosing a 4-Ohm driver is to get the maximum output power of an amplifier rated at 4-Ohms (remember that doubling your power, say from 400w RMS to 800w RMS will only give you a 3db volume increase, so, it's not as great an advantage as it seems - it does, however, provide you with more headroom, which is nice).

If your minimum amplifier load is 4-Ohms, you may choose 1 x 4-Ohm cabinet OR 2 x 8-Ohm cabinets so you can run a pair (8-Ohms / 2= 4-Ohms). The advantage here is that you now have maximum output power and twice the speakers, so you will generate more acoustic energy (i.e. volume and room coverage). Of course, you have 2 x the speakers to carry and have spent 2 x the cost of a single speaker.

There are some speakers on the market with a switch, that don't really do what the suggest they do. Speakers with a switch either use; 1) a dual-coil woofer (you see these a lot in home hi-fi subwoofers) or, 2) will add an additional resistor/capacitor contraption on the input panel. The problem with dual-coil woofers is that you have more mass to move and more voice-coil for the signal to flow through, so you lose whatever efficiency you gained by going from a nominal 8-Ohm load to a 4-Ohm load. The same issue applies to having an additional resistor/capacitor to change the impedance. If lowering the nominal load on the amplifier doubles the power (and you gain 3db in volume), the dual voice-coil and/or resistor switching scheme usually costs you about 2.5db on average, so there is no real gain.

There are a lot of great ideas, but it's impossible to change the laws of physics and there aren't any shortcuts. If you know what your application is going to be it can help you make a decision. The GR Bass amps will run at a 2.67-Ohm nominal load, BTW. What that means is that you can hook up both a 4-Ohm and an 8-Ohm speaker at the same time (2.67-Ohms). This gives you more acoustic output and will allow you to use a single speaker (say you have a pair of 1-12" speakers) for a small gig and a pair for a larger gig. The drawback here is that the 4-Ohm speaker will be louder than the other speaker, so they will not be a perfect balance (the 4-Ohm will often play about 3db louder than the 8-Ohm version). If, however, the 8-Ohm cabinet is more efficient (by between 2-Ohms ~ 4-Ohms) you will have a pretty close match of efficiency when they are both hooked up.

As in all things audio, you will just need to listen to it to decide how it sounds after you have determined your needs. What makes you happy when you are playing is generally the right solution.

If I didn't explain this clearly or if you have more questions, please let me know. Thanks! John

 

[jfiles]

Most solid-state audio amps will double the 8-Ohm power rating when running at 4-Ohms. So you will get more output power with two GR208 speakers and twice the acoustic output as well. I am a fan of doubling the SAME speaker (whether it be 1-12", 2-10", etc.) with the same impedance. That way my sound stays consistent, but I get more volume and coverage. Without knowing how loud you play, it's hard to say whether a single GR208 will cover your quieter gigs or not. A GR208 will generally be about the same acoustic output/volume as a single GR112H, so you can use this as a measure. If you want help figuring your output power, let me know what you have and I will be happy to do some research for you.

 

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