Dumb Question about speaker jacks

[MDY]

Hey Everyone.

I'm sure this has been answered. I've looked and looked and wasn't able to find something answering my specific question.

I'm running an old school Peavey rig. I've got a Pro Bass 500 running into a 1516 Cab. The back of the head has 2- 1/4" jacks & 1 speakOn for the outputs. The back of the 1516 cab has 4- 1/4" jacks; 2 for the hi/low bi-amp inputs, and 2 for normal/full range.

I've always run two cables from the head to the cab (full range inputs.) Two jacks on the head, two jacks on the cab, it made sense. The other day my guitar player asked me why I had two cables for one cab. I didn't really have an answer. Just because.

I'm I doing something right or wrong by using two cables and both 1/4" outputs? Do I only need one? If one way is correct can you explain why. The back of the had says "speaker outputs jacks paralleled." I understand the general difference between a series connection and a parallel one as well as Ohms and combining cabs. I had just never thought about using 1 output jack vs 2 and if that makes a difference in this circumstance.

Thanks for any help

 

[WayneP]

The speaker jacks in both the cabinet and amp are paralleled, meaning they are tied (connected) together. So a second cable won’t get you anything that can't be had with a single cable.

Basically, the dual jacks are there for convenience if someone wants to run two cabinets. The jacks on the cabinet let you daisy chain the second from the first. Alternately, dual jacks on the amp accomplishes the same thing, in case you have cabinets with only a single jack. Either way, the load (ohms) to the amplifier is the same.

And, it should be noted that if your amp happened to be stereo, you would have blown it by connecting both channels to a single speaker.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Pedulla Club #45

 

[S-Bigbottom]

That is it. ^

Use one.

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

The previous answers are the correct ones.

The speaker jacks in both the cabinet and amp are paralleled, meaning they are tied (connected) together. So a second cable won’t get you anything that can't be had with a single cable.

Basically, the dual jacks are there for convenience if someone wants to run two cabinets. The jacks on the cabinet let you daisy chain the second from the first. Alternately, dual jacks on the amp accomplishes the same thing, in case you have cabinets with only a single jack. Either way, the load (ohms) to the amplifier is the same.

And, it should be noted that if your amp happened to be stereo, you would have blown it by connecting both channels to a single speaker.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Pedulla Club #45

This ^is the correct answer. ^

But if you want to mess with the guitar player just for giggles, tell him that running two cables doubles the current carrying capacity, lets the connectors distribute power to run cooler, and provides redundancy in the event one cable fails.
These are all true, though 99.999% of the time unnecessary.

Be fun then to see if your guitar guy tries it.