I am sure this has been discussed before, but my search didn't really turn up the answer I was looking for. I have an old Kustom bass amp that has a mono-jack output at 4 ohms. I want to connect 2 cabinets that are 8 ohms each. Each cabinet has one 15" speaker. As far as I can tell, the way to go is parallell. Can this be done by simply splitting the output from the amp? Or do I need a more sophisticated approach? Any help is appreciated! Cheers, Hans Kristian
Yep. I've heard of some people making up a speaker cable in a "Y" shape - but i've never tried that. The way i did it with my pair of 1x15's was to put the parallel 'split' inside one of the cabs, so that only one cable goes from the amp to the 1st cab, then another cable goes between the two cabs. Too easy. Hope it helps. smo
Typically your Amp has 2 speaker out jack. Hook and 8 ohm cab onto each and your parallel and good to go. If not, then often, your speaker cabinet will have a parallel connector, So power up one cabinet and then 'jump' to the other from there. If you don't 100% trust the wiring of the cabinets then check before you fire it up! Your other alternative is to make an external box for the distribution. I do that to put 2 4 ohm cab's in series for an 8 ohm load ...
Thanks for your quick answers My amp only has ONE jack out (+ a line out), so I need to parallell wire externally. I actually don't trust the wiring inside the cabs, that's why I ask about alternative methods. I've hooked them up via the connector on one cab leading into the other, but I thought the output was rather feeble, hence I suspect the setup may still be 8 ohm or even 16. So, a Y-connector should do the business? Splitting the signal from the amp to 2 separate cables? Thanks again
That's what I would do if I were you - that way, you could daisy chain 'em at will... - georgestrings
If each cabinet has a single 8 ohm speaker, it's impossible to chain them and still have eight ohms for your total load. 16 ohms would be theoretically possible, but only if the jack being used for daisy-chaining was a switching jack and inserted the second cabinet in series with the first. I don't recall ever seeing a cabinet wired this way though, and I highly doubt that's the case. To confirm the answer others have given you: Yes, a "Y" connector/cable/box will work. You'll end up with both cabinets in parallel, 4 ohms total load impedance. 'rick
Um, maybe I'm having a brain fart here, but uh... Go from head, to cab, and from cab, to second cab. Bam. 4 ohms. If I'm not mistaken, almost all cabs are automatically in parallel in this configuration. It's putting cabs in series that requires you to be a bit more creative.
