impedance questions (4 ohm amp into 8 ohm cab)

[Gearhead17]

Whil57 - You are missing key components here. Acoustic response of a room, EQ settings on the head and what your bass/pedals are doing. An Ampeg 810 can get lost in a mix especially when you decrease the midrange frequencies (200hz to 700hz). In addition, studios are generally setup to sound really good and are quieter overall. Recording your instrument separately in a room made to make bass gear sound good is a much different experience than blasting a rig in a bar. MANY bars added an area for bands, but did NOTHING for the acoustic response of the stage or the room. That type of consideration usually happens after the stage has been there for a while and people constantly complain about it.

Your guitar player sounded loud through a 12 because a guitar mostly puts out midrange and high end. Plus it was distorted (most likely). Your ear picks up distorted mids and highs much easier than lower frequencies.

Lastly, it doesn't matter where your volume knob is set at. You can always feed a strong signal into it, set the gain high enough and make your cabinet scream for mercy with a Volume setting of 3 or even 2.

 

[Nephilymbass]

Hello. I've been looking at an eden 410xlt (700 watts, 8 ohms) for a while now. I really like the tone it puts out and the store is selling it at a great price for its condition.

Problem is, I've been planning on getting a peavey tour 700 head, which is a 4 ohm amp. I've researched the subject a little bit, and from what I understand, mismatching impedance in this way likely wouldn't cause any problems aside from the speaker not being able to run at full capacity. I'm not too worried about this, as I play a peavey t-40 with extremely hot pickups and usually end up with my volume at about 9 o'clock either way, so I'd still have plenty of headroom. Regardless, I won't likely be in a situation where I'll need to push my amp for some time.

I just want to know if it's reasonable to run a 4 ohm head through an 8 ohm speaker like this. This will be the first time I've bought a larger setup, and I don't wanna do something stupid and regret it later. Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Not super familiar with that amp but every solid state/class d head I’ve ever messed with can run @8ohms. Tube Amps can be another story. At band practice I run my 8ohm 410 by itself, we practice in a house where using both my cabs in a small room is overkill. Never had any issues with my amp doing it.

 

[Whil57]

Lastly, it doesn't matter where your volume knob is set at. You can always feed a strong signal into it, set the gain high enough and make your cabinet scream for mercy with a Volume setting of 3 or even 2.

That is my weak end, i like the gain low to keep the signal clean. Sterile, most people would think. Now that day i had the same tone which started to distort as i upped the gain and volume, so basically for me, i was already maxed where i always was. Once i had the distortion coming in, i could easily have figured, well its distorting, and it seemed worse on the gain end, so i cranked my volume.

 

[DigitalMan]

I know, i was looking at the Eden 1-15 i think. Which was 4ohm,, and was mad, because i couldnt get two or my load would have been 2ohms.

All of the Eden 1-15 cabs are available in either 4 or 8 ohm configurations afaik (they presently offer three different 1-15 cabs).

IMO a 4ohm 1-15 exhibits either boundless optimism or lack of foresight.