Amplifier impedance issue

ham_n_mustard

Howya all, i needs some help!
i really dont understand the whole impedance thing regarding amps. My amp has a min load of 4ohms. is it safe to use one 8ohm speaker, or will the amp not like that?

Doctor J

Yes. Provided the value of the speakers is equal to or geater than the minimum load of the amp you're fine. Ideally, you want the same value but a 4ohm amp into an 8ohm cab is pretty normal in bassworld.

Paolo_M

Firstly "min load of 4 ohms" almost always refers to Solid State amps, is yours a SS amp?
SS output stages deliver whatever the load (speaker) asks for basically, usually delivering max power into 4 ohm and a bit less into 8 ohms and so on. This is why no load is more tolerable on a SS amp than valve, in this instance no load means the load is not asking for anything so the output stage doesn't try to deliver. A valve amp will tries to deliver all of it's signal power regardless of what's connected and so tends to fry itself when no speaker is connected.

In short 8 ohms is absolutley fine on a SS amp, as is 16ohms, but you'll probably notice more volume with a 4 ohm load.

ham_n_mustard

Thanks lads, appreciated