Running the Darkglass Microtubes 500 into a 8OHM cab

[Daniel Clayton]

I'm considering purchasing a Darkglass Mircotubes 500 and I just had a question about Impedance. On Darkglass's website it says;

"The M500 is rated at 500W @ 4 Ohms. This means that you can use Cabinets, or combinations of cabinets with an impedance 4 Ohms AT LEAST. NEVER connect a load less than 4 ohms to the output of the amp. The amp will shut down or get damaged if you do.

The M500 will produce this power versus impedance:
500W @ 4 Ohms
250W @ 8 Ohms
125W @ 16 Ohms"

I understand if I only use one 8 ohm cab that the max power I can get is 250W, however; does that mean that my max power rating doesn't need to be higher than 250-300 watts? Am I in danger of blowing out the amp if I use an amp with a power rating that low? I will eventually get another cab for it but In due time, I'm just seeing if I can play and practice with just one amp at this current time. Thanks!

 

[BogeyBass]

It's all common sense.

You'll hit speaker distortion and then that's about the limit.

But yes 250 watts is just fine for a single cab / single speaker situation.

You can use a 10 watt speaker or 1000 watt speaker. As long as you don't push it to hard.

Amp will be fine. Amplifiers have more a challenge with high current and heat at lower impedance like 4 or 2 ohms

A higher impedance like 8 or 16 ohms is a cakewalk and not as demanding or stressful to amplifier at all. Amp will be fine at 8 ohms no problem.

It just depends on what your doing and how much SPL you need or how loud you need to get.
a single speaker may or may not reach the SPL you need. It's not always about wattage and cabinet ratings. Industry ratings can be confusing or misleading.

Sometimes you just need to move more air. And you get more bang for the buck with more speakers. Or more cone area to move the air.

Pretty good standard to get over a moderate to loud drummer was the good old 2x15 and then the 4 x10

 

[deff]

At 8 ohms impedance you likely won't notice that much of a difference. I have the 900 watt version and run an 8ohm 410 cab. The guitarist in the band runs a JCM800 full stack and we're loud. I rarely turn up past 3.5 on the MV with the gain set at 12. YMMV, but you should likely be just fine, the speaker will be impacted before anything happens with the amp.

 

[Vette1976]

To OP if you are running cabs then try to use at least equal power handling wattage for that load, if not a higher watt cab to be safer for the speakers. So the amp is rated to put out 250w @ 8 ohm you should use 250w cab or more to be safer, like a 300w or 350w. Same if you happened to have a 4 ohm cab it should be at least 500w cab or better.
I am also looking at the Darkglass gear and I see the new 500v2 has a min 2 ohm load, but ratings in manual are for 250w @ 8 ohms and 500w @ 4 ohms, then manual states that the amp can produce more than 500w but doesn’t advise what that 2 ohm minimum would produce.

 

[Jake555]

Thanks everyone!! I’ve been exploring TB for a couple days about this stuff. I’m beginning to get a handle of it. I can buy the amp and slowly raise the volume with gain on zero until I hit distortion in the speakers and then that’s the spot I’ll have to remember.

Fender replied with a spec sheet, but it’s not too helpful. Appreciate their efforts at least. Eminence will probably know in their reply I suspect, this broken amp is turning from a very lame experience into an exciting one!!