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Posted

How odd. Multi speaker cabs often have the capability to switch between series and parallel connection to match to the amp. If there is only one driver speaker the switch possibly adds a series or parallel resistor which only makes any sense if connecting to a valve amp?  It might be worth opening up the cab to see what the switch does

Posted
  On 16/02/2023 at 21:01, basstone said:

 If there is only one driver speaker the switch possibly adds a series or parallel resistor which only makes any sense if connecting to a valve amp? 

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It doesn't make any sense regardless of the type of amp it is connected to, your resistor would have to match the wattage of any speaker it was connected to as half of your power would be going to heat up the resistor, which means it needs to be very big and bolted to some metal to get rid of the heat and you are wasting half of your power.

 

So if you have a valve amp, connect it to the correct impedance output, and if you have a solid state amp, you can put more power into the speaker, and use more power, just to throw away that power heating a resistor, giving you the same volume if you had connected it without the resistor.

 

The Harkte has a dual voice coil apparently, so I guess you are only using half of it in one of the modes.

  • Like 2
Posted
  On 16/02/2023 at 23:21, Woodinblack said:

 

It doesn't make any sense regardless of the type of amp it is connected to, your resistor would have to match the wattage of any speaker it was connected to as half of your power would be going to heat up the resistor, which means it needs to be very big and bolted to some metal to get rid of the heat and you are wasting half of your power.

 

So if you have a valve amp, connect it to the correct impedance output, and if you have a solid state amp, you can put more power into the speaker, and use more power, just to throw away that power heating a resistor, giving you the same volume if you had connected it without the resistor.

 

The Harkte has a dual voice coil apparently, so I guess you are only using half of it in one of the modes.

Expand  

Totally agree with you, but if the switch is there just thinking out loud really.  I didn't know about the Hartke speaker with the dual voice coil.  It would be good to hear what it is actually doing but opening up the cab 🙂

 

Posted (edited)
  On 16/02/2023 at 23:21, Woodinblack said:

 

It doesn't make any sense regardless of the type of amp it is connected to, your resistor would have to match the wattage of any speaker it was connected to as half of your power would be going to heat up the resistor, which means it needs to be very big and bolted to some metal to get rid of the heat and you are wasting half of your power.

 

So if you have a valve amp, connect it to the correct impedance output, and if you have a solid state amp, you can put more power into the speaker, and use more power, just to throw away that power heating a resistor, giving you the same volume if you had connected it without the resistor.

 

The Harkte has a dual voice coil apparently, so I guess you are only using half of it in one of the modes.

Expand  

Rather than only using half of the dual voice coil couldn't it be a case of either using the dual coil in respectively parallel and series mode of the two coils, seems to make the most sense to me?

Edited by Baloney Balderdash
Posted
  On 21/02/2023 at 06:42, Baloney Balderdash said:

Rather than only using half of the dual voice coil couldn't it be a case of either using the dual coil in respectively parallel and series mode of the two coils, seems to make the most sense to me?

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There is simply no way to swap equal loads series to parallel and achieve a factor of 2 change.

 

2X in series

0.5X in parallel.

 

In the same way a 4 ohm 410 can't be rewired to be 8ohm.

  • Like 2
Posted

Re: my slightly vague ‘AccuSwitch’ reference earlier, this was a minor scandal about 20 years(!) ago, in which respected cab builder Accugroove added a mysterious sealed black box to their cabs which they claimed offered switchable impedance. It was swiftly identified as snake oil. A very strange move.

 

I’m sure @Bill Fitzmaurice remembers that one!

Posted
  On 21/02/2023 at 07:35, wateroftyne said:

Re: my slightly vague ‘AccuSwitch’ reference earlier, this was a minor scandal about 20 years(!) ago, in which respected cab builder Accugroove added a mysterious sealed black box to their cabs which they claimed offered switchable impedance. It was swiftly identified as snake oil. A very strange move.

 

I’m sure @Bill Fitzmaurice remembers that one!

Expand  


I do! I remember that well! 

Posted

Hartke’s cabinets (112) did indeed use a driver with two coils and a switch to select 8 or 4 ohms operation. It wasn’t a dummy or resistive load.

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