HeLP! Speaker Ohms, question about hooking combo to cab and bypassing combo speaker

[bigcolyn]

OK
I just bought a 4X12 cab cos tho i have a combo amp thats 100watts, its only got 1 12" speaker and sounds like dirt

anyways so i got the 4x12 cab and hooked the combo to it. the cab sounds good. only problem is the sound coming out of the 1X12 in the combo is way louder and the dirt is overpowering the good of the 4x12

the combo is a DOD juice-it. the extension jack to the Cab is 8-16ohms, and the speaker alread in the combo is rated at 8 ohms

the 4x12 cab is 8ohms mono, and 32 ohms stereo (16 per side)

is there a safe way to somehow bypass the speaker in the combo and use it just as a head without damaging the amp or the 4x12 cab possibly because of altered loads???

cos i have access to the speaker wires for the 1X12 in the combo and could disconnect it but i dont know how this would effect anything.

i know it sounds complicated, but anyone know about this kinda stuff??
any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks!!!!!!!!

[Farview]

just disconnect the speaker in the combo. tape the wires so they don't touch anything. The impedence thing is more of a problem in tube amps, that one is solid state.

[bigcolyn]

thanks i appreciate your response
but i wanna be really safe, any second opinions out there?
perhaps a more techincal possibly even numerical explanation as to why or why not
thanks again!

[AlexW]

It depends on how the speaker connections in the cab are wired--most likely parallel from how you describe the effect on the sound of the existing speaker. When you parallel connect to 8 ohm speakers, you end up with an effective load on your amp of 4 ohms, meaning they'll get louder. Disconnecting the combo amp speaker will take the load back to 8 ohms. Shouldn't hurt anything. In most cases the only way to damage an amp is to connect too low a load to it.

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by bigcolyn

thanks i appreciate your response
but i wanna be really safe, any second opinions out there?
perhaps a more techincal possibly even numerical explanation as to why or why not
thanks again!

OK, Farview's right

The combo is 8 ohms, and based on the label on the jack the amp can handle as low as 4 ohms (8 ohm combo speaker + 8 ohm extension in parallel).

If you disconnect the combo speaker and plug in your cab to the jack, you're at 8 ohms, same as the combo before you unplugged the speaker.