Speaker question

jdbwales

Hoping for one of those glorious @ICBM answers here...

I'm just about to grab a backup head at a great price - it's a 90s Peavey Special 112 converted to a head, essentially a higher output Bandit - a 160w output into 4 ohms.

My cabinet runs at 16ohms - it's a 2x12 with 50w Eminences, obviously handling 100w in total.

I know running an amp that puts out 160w at 4 ohms into a 16ohm cabinet will lower the volume to somewhere around 70/80w - so my question is, am I asking for blown speakers with this or would it be OK? 

I'd be unlikely to whack it up to anywhere near full volume if that makes any difference!

Any help or advice would be appreciated! Thank you.

ICBM

It will be fine. The amp won't put out as much as 70-80W into 16 ohms.

Generally with a Class AB solid-state amp with an averagely regulated power supply, you get about 60-70% of the power when running into double the minimum load - ie about 100-110W - but when you increase the impedance again it tends to de-rate fairly linearly from there because there is not that much further increase in the power supply voltages... so you'll more likely only get about 50 to 60W.

Thats definitely safe with a 100W pair of any decent guitar speakers, even with less than the most conservative rating.

is that ok?

jdbwales

That is perfect - thank you as ever sir...