elvis
Well-known member
I was auditioning all of my amps through all of my cabs, and wound up getting some unexpectedly bassy and/or tight tones. I was going back and forth between an 8 Ohm 2x12 cab and two 8 Ohm 1x12 cabs, which are 4 Ohms in parallel.
My Electradyne was not terribly sensitive and the Mark V was a little. In essence, if you run a 4 Ohm speaker load from the 8-Ohm output, the sound tightens up. It seems like the output is not quite strong enough to drive the low end. Interestingly, it seems strong, it doesn't saturate, but you lose a little bass, which winds up being a bit tighter. Alternatively, driving an 8 Ohm speaker load with the 4 Ohm output gets much heavier low end. The output seems to drive the heck out of the speaker. I would guess it's because there is a lot more current available from the 4 Ohm amp output.
Where it got interesting was with my Mini Rec. That amp was VERY sensitive to speaker load. When I drove an 8 Ohm load with the 4 Ohm output, it got a lot more low end. This is great for giving more girth to a thin-sounding cab. Then, driving 4 Ohms from the 8-Ohm output, the tone was REALLY tight.
In particular, I was driving a C90 and a V30 in parallel, which has a TON of low-end due to the scooped tone of the C90. I was plugging amps in back and forth and the C90/V30 combination can be oppressively low-end heavy. Suddenly the Mini Rec through them was SUPER tight and powerful-sounding. Really really great. It took me a little while to figure it out, but it was connected via the 8 Ohm output. I was able to easily reproduce it by swapping speakers and outputs.
So if you want more low end, or to tighten up some overwhelming bass response, this is a viable technique.
My Electradyne was not terribly sensitive and the Mark V was a little. In essence, if you run a 4 Ohm speaker load from the 8-Ohm output, the sound tightens up. It seems like the output is not quite strong enough to drive the low end. Interestingly, it seems strong, it doesn't saturate, but you lose a little bass, which winds up being a bit tighter. Alternatively, driving an 8 Ohm speaker load with the 4 Ohm output gets much heavier low end. The output seems to drive the heck out of the speaker. I would guess it's because there is a lot more current available from the 4 Ohm amp output.
Where it got interesting was with my Mini Rec. That amp was VERY sensitive to speaker load. When I drove an 8 Ohm load with the 4 Ohm output, it got a lot more low end. This is great for giving more girth to a thin-sounding cab. Then, driving 4 Ohms from the 8-Ohm output, the tone was REALLY tight.
In particular, I was driving a C90 and a V30 in parallel, which has a TON of low-end due to the scooped tone of the C90. I was plugging amps in back and forth and the C90/V30 combination can be oppressively low-end heavy. Suddenly the Mini Rec through them was SUPER tight and powerful-sounding. Really really great. It took me a little while to figure it out, but it was connected via the 8 Ohm output. I was able to easily reproduce it by swapping speakers and outputs.
So if you want more low end, or to tighten up some overwhelming bass response, this is a viable technique.
