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Under driving your cab with too much headroom?

I'm using a solid state 800w/4ohms amp head and a 8x10 2000w/4ohms speaker cabinet. Is this okay for the cab and head? My head also says it runs 450w at 8ohms on the master dial. Is this okay to run on my cab or should I keep the master at 800w at 4ohms (max) and keep the volume down. Thanks in advance.
 
I'm using a solid state 800w/4ohms amp head and a 8x10 2000w/4ohms speaker cabinet. Is this okay for the cab and head? My head also says it runs 450w at 8ohms on the master dial. Is this okay to run on my cab or should I keep the master at 800w at 4ohms (max) and keep the volume down. Thanks in advance.

Read the sticky thread about ohms at the top of the amps forum. It doesn't sound like you understand what they are and how they work.
 
I did it for years w/o any problem, a 18 Watt tube amp into a 400 Watt 8 Ohm cabinet.

You match the impedance, don't switch your amp to 8 Ohms into a 4 Ohm cabinet.
That 450 Watts at 8 Ohms just means that if you plug in a 8 Ohm load the amp will only output up to 450 Watts.

If you're using a 4 Ohm load, then the amp can output all 800 Watts.
 
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OP, the watt rating on your speaker cabinet indicates the amount of power your cab can take safely. "underpowering" it is the same as turning down the volume to it. As long as the Ohms rating isn't too low for your amp (assuming it's solid state) you will be fine.
 
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The only caveat that I can think of is that you might not be able to power the 2000W cabinet into it’s best sounding region.

If I may be so bold as to address Paula’ post. A 200W cabinet connected to a 3KW amp will be happy until it isn’t. Get the volume level high enough and the 200W cabinet will indeed fail! :)
 
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I'm using a solid state 800w/4ohms amp head and a 8x10 2000w/4ohms speaker cabinet. Is this okay for the cab and head? My head also says it runs 450w at 8ohms on the master dial. Is this okay to run on my cab or should I keep the master at 800w at 4ohms (max) and keep the volume down. Thanks in advance.
What cab is this?
 
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Might want to rethink that last statement

ea8c_rocket_surgeon.jpg
 
I'm using a solid state 800w/4ohms amp head and a 8x10 2000w/4ohms speaker cabinet. Is this okay for the cab and head? My head also says it runs 450w at 8ohms on the master dial. Is this okay to run on my cab or should I keep the master at 800w at 4ohms (max) and keep the volume down. Thanks in advance.
There is no such thing as underpowering.

Notice in cab specs, the sensitivity specification is usually measured using one watt.
 
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