Speaker short - will this damage an amp?

[NZ4infinity]

So easy to do. I got new speaker cables and they have very loose plugs, slightly small. So, the positives popped out and went straight down onto the negatives- blew the right channels of both amps- yes my speakers are bi amped so one channel of each is buggered at least. Dont know if can be fixed or not, dropping to my amp guy this week.. fingers crossed

 

[jazzmans]

OP; Yes, it can, and Yes, you are lucky.

I've accidently shorted my Carver M 1.5T more times then I can count, (I've had it for over 20 years now) and never let the magic smoke out, but now I am very careful to turn things off before making any wire changes.

I have seen a tube amp go Poof! before, however, as well as a cheap ass HK integrated.

jaz

 

[BrocLuno]

You was lucky - good audio karma in this case

Push the gods too far, and they will bite back ...

 

[sb47]

Very bad to short the wires. Avoid it at all costs. Some equipment deals with it better than others.

The better the amps, the better the protection. Some amps can be safe down to 2 ohms or even lower.
A ½ ohm load is almost a dead short anyway.
It manly depends on how much currant is flowing when it happens.
Very low volume your chances are better then if its cranked up.
I’ve had a few amps that were just test amps and not fit for much more (cheap and beat up) and never shut the power off when switching speakers and shorting wires and never suffered any noticeable damage.

However on high power PA amps that use banana speaker plugs (that can be stacked) there is a warning about receiving a severe shock if you touch the lead when plugging in speakers under power.

Unless it a junk amp/receiver I wouldn’t do it, just in case.

 

[mech986]

If it's a SS amp, shorting the outputs is usually the easiest way to find out exactly how much smoke they packed in the amp..

This^^. Once shorted, you can replace the components which contain the smoke, and if you're lucky, those will work. If not, PFFFT! again.