Ohms Matching
- Thread starter Twinhit
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Scott594
Active Member
Short answer - Yes, you can.
However there are some things you'll have to consider to decide if it's feasible or not. It will require some crossover work - the formulas for calculating what value changes will need to be made to your existing one or to build a new one can be found all about this and the DIY forums. The output level will be 50% that it would be for the same horn @ 8 ohms, this may or may not be a problem as the horns are usually so much more efficient than the cone drivers so that they usually need to be attenuated anyhow. Hard to tell if the 50% reduction will be too much or not depending on a lot of specifics in the mix.
Another major factor is what the speakers are and what they are being used for. If they are some fine high quality units from the 70's for example, it wouldn't make much sense to modify a classic. On the other hand if they are being used for general PA service, or are lower end units to start with, You just may want to plug in the 16 ohm horns and see how they sound. You won't harm anything by doing this - the worst that will happen is they won't sound so good. It may be a financially expedient solution if you already own the 16 ohm drivers. If you're building from scratch and already have the horns, hook them up with a simple cap crossover and lay them on the bench or use a makeshift cabinet and you'll get a pretty good idea how they're going to get along before you start the process of designing an enclosure and Xover.
If they don't sound so good, you can try a few things to improve them, such as using a simple series capacitor off the main to maximize efficiency and adjust the crossover point - a series resistor or Lpad could be installed to attenuated as required. Again, formulas and tables to get you in the ballpark are readily available.
Last option (although there many others I'm not going to delve into) would be to sell them on that auction site and buy the right ones - maybe find someone who needs 16's and will trade 8's for them.
Hope I helped, hard to be more specific without more details.
NOW - The Fine Print...........
However there are some things you'll have to consider to decide if it's feasible or not. It will require some crossover work - the formulas for calculating what value changes will need to be made to your existing one or to build a new one can be found all about this and the DIY forums. The output level will be 50% that it would be for the same horn @ 8 ohms, this may or may not be a problem as the horns are usually so much more efficient than the cone drivers so that they usually need to be attenuated anyhow. Hard to tell if the 50% reduction will be too much or not depending on a lot of specifics in the mix.
Another major factor is what the speakers are and what they are being used for. If they are some fine high quality units from the 70's for example, it wouldn't make much sense to modify a classic. On the other hand if they are being used for general PA service, or are lower end units to start with, You just may want to plug in the 16 ohm horns and see how they sound. You won't harm anything by doing this - the worst that will happen is they won't sound so good. It may be a financially expedient solution if you already own the 16 ohm drivers. If you're building from scratch and already have the horns, hook them up with a simple cap crossover and lay them on the bench or use a makeshift cabinet and you'll get a pretty good idea how they're going to get along before you start the process of designing an enclosure and Xover.
If they don't sound so good, you can try a few things to improve them, such as using a simple series capacitor off the main to maximize efficiency and adjust the crossover point - a series resistor or Lpad could be installed to attenuated as required. Again, formulas and tables to get you in the ballpark are readily available.
Last option (although there many others I'm not going to delve into) would be to sell them on that auction site and buy the right ones - maybe find someone who needs 16's and will trade 8's for them.
Hope I helped, hard to be more specific without more details.
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Thank you Scott.
I am a long way from finishing this project as what I want to do with it is dictating what components I end up using. I am not tied to any speakers as yet. I do have an Altec 811B horn, less driver, though.
If you're a regular, I'll bring this back up to the forefront when I get my idea in order... I was just curious about it as I had read somewhere that you could but there might be issues, but I couldn't remember what those issues were.
So you know, off the top of my head, I got this crazy idea of building a 3-way Stereo speaker system that would double duty as audiophile speaker then guitar amp speaker.... Cough... Ok... you can laugh now.... or have you heard of that being done?
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