Two 8 Ohm Speaker Cabinets

Two 8ω cabinets both plugged into an amp 4ω load.

Two 8 ohm speaker cabinets.

One 8ω cabinet plugged into another 8ω cabinet then into the amp 16ω. Two 4 ohm speakers 8 ohm load two 8 ohm speakers 16 ohm load. So if you had 2 16ω boxes then you would have a total of 8ω. It s best to match like cabinets.

A parallel wiring turns those 2 8 ohm speakers into a system of 4 ohms total. Match impedances ohms all speakers in the same box should have the same impedance. Wiring configuration for 4 speakers in series parallel. If your amp says it can put out a certain number of watts at 4 ohms you can only.

A 4x12 cab is typically 16 ohms so when you connect two of them together in parallel the total load becomes 8 ohms. To wire a 4x12 cabinet in series parallel where four 8 ohm speakers are wired in series parallel equaling a total load of 8 ohms as in the illustration below. Ohms most speakers have an impedance of either 4 8 or 16 ohms ω. A parallel wiring of 4 16 ohm speakers has a system of 4 ohms total as well.

Most amplifiers on the planet can run an 8 ohm load so this is desirable. Running cabinets in this fashion from one power amp will give you a 2. Connect negative side of speaker a to positive side of speaker b. Connect positive side of speaker a to positive side of speaker c.

To give you an example of how confusing this is imagine 2 8 ohm speakers. Remember we said if your amp can t handle a 2 ohm load it could go up in flames. 1 x 8 ohm speaker 8 ohm load 1x16 ohm speaker 16 ohm load two speakers remember. The cabinet impedance depends on how the speakers are wired and may differ from the impedance of the speakers.

When playing through multiple speaker cabinets one must remember that this will change the impedance that your amp must compensate for. Four 8 ohm speakers 2 ohm load four 16 ohm speakers 4 ohm load four 32 ohm speakers 8 ohm load. In parallel you simply divide the total ohm rating by the number of speakers or speaker boxes. Wiring configuration for 4 speakers in parallel.

Two 4 ohm cabinets would have an impedance of 2 ohms. Or two 8. The 4x12 cabinet is sometimes referred to as a half stack and players routinely connect two of them to a single amp to create a full stack. The most basic cabinet configuration is a single speaker.

To simplify parallel wiring pretend your speaker system has a total of 2 speakers with 16 ohms each.