Ohms! 4 ohm head into 16 ohm cab? Bad idea?

WillEdmunds

Bit confused about the whole ohmage thing. I'm looking at buying a Swart Space Tone head but it annoyingly only has a 4ohm output.

I only have one cab, with a 16 ohm Celestion Gold. I love the speaker - don't really want to change it, but certainly don't want to damage the Swart head either...

I could hunt around for an 8 ohm speaker but a 4 ohm cab won't suit my other head (Morgan SW22R).

There seems to be conflicting opinions online about whether mis-matching ohms is ok and I can't work out whether this will be alright or not! Thoughts?

ICBM

Mismatching that much is a bad idea. 2:1 in either direction is safe with *most* valve amps, but 4:1 - especially with the amp lower than the load - isn't.

It is possible to get impedance-matching transformers, I think Dr.Z does one.

I have to say that the only time I've heard a Swart amp, it had a Gold in it and sounded absolutely dreadful. Although not much better with a G12H-30 either...

WillEdmunds

ICBM said:

Mismatching that much is a bad idea. 2:1 in either direction is safe with *most* valve amps, but 4:1 - especially with the amp lower than the load - isn't.

It is possible to get impedance-matching transformers, I think Dr.Z does one.

I have to say that the only time I've heard a Swart amp, it had a Gold in it and sounded absolutely dreadful. Although not much better with a G12H-30 either...

Alright thanks.