Wiring a 2 x 12 cab with Powerhead

  • Hi,


    I'm going to swap my 2 x 12 cab Kones for Celestion Vintage 30s. I want amp in room sound live & I'm using a separate monitor speaker set at home.


    The v30 are 8 Ohms - can anyone say what wiring would be best? Last think I want to do is blow the Powerhead....!


    Thanks :thumbup:

  • The Powerhead would work better with 2 x 8 Ohms in parallel for a total of 4 Ohms. Just mind the gain as you have 600 watts driving speakers with 120 watts of power handling.


    If you want to be able to use a tube amp - eg a Marshall head - to drive the cab you would be better to go with 2 x 8 Ohm in series for 16 Ohm.

  • Cheers. Nah this is to go with the KPA so parallel it is then.


    There must be a load of people using 2 x 12 traditional cabs with the Powerhead so must be little risk of blowing speakers as long as you're careful? I remember reading that the 600W is kinda theoretical - meaning it doesn't really put that out.


    V 30s are known to be crazy loud anyway so guessing plenty of room not to have to take them too far.

  • Class D amps are cleaner at lower levels. They distort more in not necessarily agreeable ways as they are driven harder. You will have more clean headroom at 4 Ohms. Whether this will matter to you in practice is another matter.


    You can protect yourself from blowing up the cab by restricting the output power for the monitor out in the Output section. A 10 dB reduction there gives 60 watts instead of 600. Still plenty loud.

  • 2x16 in parallel for 8 ohms is a good choice IMO. 2x8 is good if you want the option to wire in stereo/mono. You can run an 8 Ohm cab off just about any amp - 4 and 16 Ohm cabs can create more issues unless you are combining more than one of them.


    You can get a jack plate which allows you to run in stereo/parallel or series from amplified parts for example

    https://www.amplifiedparts.com…plug-and-play-mono-stereo. I used one with a pair of Kones in a 2x12 and the full wiring loom is there on the plate already with no need to solder if you prefer not to.