went to a swap meet today

Could be wired yes as parallel jacks.

Basically both go to same place, same polarity

 

Speaker outputs from amps only plug into speaker inputs on cabs. (This is actually irrelevant to your OP, unless you would ever plug two amps into the same speaker)

Parallel means two input connectors wired (+) to (+) and (-) to (-) to the source's corresponding polarities.

Connecting two 8 ohm speakers by running the amp into one cabinet input then connect the second "input" to the other cabinet will result in a 4 ohm load to the amp. This is a daisy chain. This is the same to the amp as using two parallel amplifier outputs to connect to one cabinet each.

Line outs will not power speakers. Use that for connecting to the inputs of mixing consoles or power amps, etc.

 

High and low inputs on the amp are generally intended to suit high and low output instruments. The low will distort a bit sooner than the high. Pick whichever one you find works best for you, but in general an active instrument (ie battery in the bass) should go in the high input and a standard spec instrument in the low.

A standard resistance meter will give you the dc resistance of the speakers. Typically this will be a bit below the rated impedance, so somewhere between 6 and 7 ohms normally indicates an 8 ohm cabinet.

Most likely all the inputs on the speakers are connected in parallel and can be used interchangeably. If there's something 'clever' going on you'd hope it would be labelled.

 

The old Kustom amps high and low inputs are like Fenders. They're wired in parallel with a switching circuit to place a resistor in the circuit if you use the low one. It simply reduces the signal before it gets to the first stage of amplification. Designed to protect the amp in the days people would see four input jacks and figure they could plug the whole band into their single Bassman.

Try both, and if your bass distorts the input, try the other one.

 

Thief.

 

I have a Sunn B202 (2x12 cab) from that era. The backplate on mine has three outs. The top one is used to connect to the amp. Then I have one jack labeled Parallel Out (that's the industry standard connection) and a second jack labeled "Serial Out" (that's a very rare connection). A "Daisy-Chain" is formed by plugging one cab into the amp and a second cab into the first cab.

In my case, I wanted to run an 8 ohm 115 cab with my 4 ohm Sunn 212 cab. If I hooked those up in "parallel" that would have resulted in a 2.67 ohm load on my 8 ohm minimum load amp and it would have basically melted. Parallel connections always drop the ohms load, series connections always add them together.

So I plugged my Sunn 4 ohm cab into my 8 ohm minimum load amp, which is normally asking for problems, but then I daisy chained my 115 cab out of my Sunn cab using the "Serial Out" connection. That added the ohms of resistance of the two cabs together - 8 ohms + 4 ohms = 12 ohms, and that 12 ohm load was safe to run through that 8 ohm minimum load amp. With a 12 ohm load, the power output from that amp dropped from 125-watts down to about 85-watts. But, since I more than doubled the speaker area, it was a net gain in volume (louder than the 115 by itself) and sounded much better..

I have honestly never seen another cab that was set up that way although the older Eden cabs used banana plugs which can be hooked up either parallel or series if you like.

One thing you need to check the back plate for is too see what the power-handling is on that cab. My Sunn B202 will only handle 100-watts and it gets surprisingly loud doing so. But you really didn't find any 800-watt bass amps back then so be sure you check it out. If you hear the speaker start to make farting sounds while you are playing, you are stressing it and if you continue playing at that level, you will blow the speaker.

You can try backing off the Bass EQ a couple of notches (from 12 o'clock down to 10 o'clock or so) and if that doesn't work you MUST drop the master volume on your amp or you will ruin that speaker. Don't finish the song without getting rid of that farting sound.

Since you are new to this, another note of caution - Do NOT use instrument cables to hook up your speakers to the amp. Always use SPEAKER cables. If you use instrument cables instead (which are shielded with woven wire around the rubber enclosed central wire), they will work for a while and then they will wreck your amp. Speaker cord ALWAYS has 2 separate wires inside and NO shielding. Only use speaker cables to hook any speakers up to any amp.

 

By the way, I bought my Sunn ((O)) B202 for $40 at a yard sale too!

 

Hey @mexicanjesus, Managed to get some more info on your cab. It has two 1/4" jacks and those are parallel output. It's also an 8 ohm impedance cab. Doesn't matter which jack you hook up to the amp and which one you hook up to another cab. If you daisy chain another 8 ohm cab to it you'll be putting a 4 ohm load on your amp. Most, but not all, amps can handle that. So check the back of your amp to see what the minimum ohms load is on the amp. DO NOT go below that or you will end up with a nice looking paperweight.

That cab is ONLY rated at 80-watts. So don't try to slam a lot of watts into it. Reports are with it's reflex design it is a very efficient speaker with wide angle distribution and gets plenty loud without a lot of power. That's the same thing I found in my Sunn cab too. Enjoy your $40 cab!

 

Sweet deal ...

 

i got wife #3 at a swap meet ..!!

 

What did you have to swap?

 

Yeah, don’t use instrument cables to a speaker cab. The conductors are way too small to carry the amount of current which means they can get hot, melt the insulation, and short out which could destroy the head. If you don’t want to pick up speaker cables even using a standard zip extension power cable that you’ve cut off the ends and replaced with 1/4 plugs.

 

If you are handy with a soldering iron you can make your own speaker cables. Just go to a hardware store where they sell "lamp cord" by the foot. Get yourself as many feet as you need and get a couple of 1/4" plugs. Strip about 1/4" of insulation off the wire ends and solder the wire ends to the plugs...or use the plugs that have screws to attach so you don't have to solder. The lamp cord wire is usually 14 or 16 gauge, which is fine, and it's flat so it's easy to make sure you're attaching the same wire end to the same contact on both plugs. These speaker cords roll up easily, are usually brown in color, and there is no mistaking them for an instrument cord - makes it easy to spot them. It's a real MUST to use speaker cables for amp to speaker connections.