4 Ohm or 8 Ohm

[jay42]

Hi folks

 

I have an amp with 2 x 600W power stages that can drive down to 4 Ohms each side. 

 

My question is this, would getting two 4 Ohm cabs be more advantageous connecting one each to each channel or getting two 8 Ohm cabs for better flexibility? 

 

I'd be interested to hear opinions! 

 

Jay

[Newfoundfreedom]

I'd personally go for 8ohm cabs. You're not going to hear at lot of difference in actual volume between an 8 and a 4, and it leaves you the flexibility to add a couple more cabs later should you feel the need. 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Newfoundfreedom

[warwickhunt]

Are you 'always' going to have an amp that will drive x2 4 ohm cabs?  Your present power amp can but not a lot of dedicated bass amps will.  

 

You'd not notice a massive difference between (otherwise identical) 4 or 8 ohm cabs but a pair of 8 ohm makes more sense longer term.

 

[Downunderwonder]

600w per channel is probably something like 400w clean watts available to be going to an 8 ohm cab. Not many cabs will do very much more with an extra 200w on top of 400w, if they haven't reached breaking point already.

 

[BassmanPaul]

I went the other way around. I bought 4Ω cabinets and then looked for suitable amps to drive them. I went with a stereo power amp and built a pre-amp to drive it. All the amps I own nowadays are happy with 2Ω loads per channel so I can use as many of my four Acme boxes as I wish.

 

Using 'regular' bass amps I would stay with 8Ω speaker systems unless you switch to amps that are 2Ω capable.

Edited January 17, 2022 by BassmanPaul

[Phil Starr]

I wouldn't be choosing cabs on the basis of impedance but how they sound. Ask what sort of sound you want, is weight and portability important and so on first of all.

 

The probability is that with 1200W into a pair of 4 ohm cabs or even 800w into 8 ohms you are going to be able to drown out the rest of the band and blow the whole bands eardrums/cochlea so extra volume is the last thing you want even if your 4ohm speakers could handle 600W.

 

Do you have a particular speaker in mind?

 

 

[fretmeister]

I'm silently judging you for not getting four 8 ohm cabs to do it properly.

[thodrik]

1 minute ago, fretmeister said:

I'm silently judging you for not getting four 8 ohm cabs to do it properly.

Damn right, straight from the 1988 Trace Elliot sales brochures. Go for the 'full professional' set up of two 4x10s and and two 2x15s, or the 'portable semi-professional' set up of two 2x10s and two 1x15s. Size, weight, practicality and back aches be damned. 

[jay42]

Hey, thanks for the feedback guys

 

Seriously I'd love to go all out Trace-style with four cabs however I won't survive the beating I'll get from my bandmates lol Incidentally, my amp does happen to be a Trace Elliot...! 

 

That's why I asked the question; in my mind if I went for 4 Ohm cabinets I could utilise full power from the amp but with only two cabs but then at the same time I like the flexibility of the 8s in that although using only a single channel I could always add if I wanted to...

 

Still undecided! 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

31 minutes ago, jay42 said:

 in my mind if I went for 4 Ohm cabinets I could utilise full power from the amp

Divest that notion. It's the rare cab that can make use of more than half its rated thermal input power before running out of the mechanical ability to use it, so the oft mentioned quest of 'getting all the watts out of my amp' is right up there with the search for the Holy Grail or an honest politician of things not worth the effort.