Guitar Gear Forum

I have another 4x12 with 16 ohm speakers that's currently wired in series/parallel and need to make it parallel to use with a 4 ohm amp. I understand the concept of parallel wiring and how it works in a diagram but I'm having a tricky time figuring out the actual re-wiring here.

So the cab has four speakers. Each vertical pair is wired in parallel and then those pairs are connected together in series with a single wire across the bottom that bridges a positive terminal to a negative terminal. If I want to make all four speakers parallel, would I move the pos-neg bridge wire to a neg-neg position and add in another wire in a pos-pos position? Or is there more to it?

For a visual, this is how it is wired now, four 16 ohm speakers in series/parallel for a 16 ohm total load. I need to make the whole thing parallel for a 4 ohm load.

And here is what I was thinking of doing.

I just tested my theory and my multimeter is showing 4Ω (well, 3.7, but it also showed 13Ω when I tested the original series/parallel wiring, so I figured it would show just a little under 4). Just waiting to hear back if this was indeed the right way to do it.

I *think* that second one you posted looks right - especially when confirmed with the multimeter. Ajax's is a bit cleaner, but both do the job.

What are you plugging in to that needs a 4 ohm load? Old Fender?

You realize......solid state amps don't give a shit, you can do what you want, it'll never blow up

bentoast wrote:I just tested my theory and my multimeter is showing 4Ω (well, 3.7, but it also showed 13Ω when I tested the original series/parallel wiring, so I figured it would show just a little under 4). Just waiting to hear back if this was indeed the right way to do it.

You are good, 4, 8 & 16 ohms are rounded values. The 3.7 ohm would round off to the 4 ohms you were shooting for.