RockettCrawford

Obviously by "decomposed" you're talking about your speakers and rightly so. I'd hold back on the volume and you should be fine.

I've never personally seen a 1/4 inch jack that didn't require soldering. You're probably going to need to borrow someone's soldering iron to do this.

You'll first need to determine the ohms that your amplifier head is expecting for the speakers. There is usually either a switch where you can select different ohmages (4 ohms, 8 ohms, 16 ohms) or jacks on the back of your amplifier head that are each labeled 4 ohms, 8 ohms or 16 ohms.  These need  to match the speaker ohms.

Since you have two 8 ohm speakers you can either wire your cabinet as 4 ohms or 16 ohms. So you need to find out if your amplifier head is expecting either of those.

Your 4 cables should be 2 wires coming from each speaker. Somewhere either on the terminals that the wires hook into the speaker or on the wires themselves, it should say positive or negative (+ or -).

For 4 ohms you want to wire your two 8 ohm speakers in parallel. To do this combine the positive (+) wires from each of the speakers together and also combine the negative (-) wires together. Take the positive wires that you combined and solder them to the "tip" terminal on the 1/4 inch jack. That's the one that connects them to the end part of the plug when it's plugged in. Then solder the negative (-) wires to the "ring" terminal that connects to the longer part of the plug when it's plugged in.

If your amplifier head instead needs16 ohms then you need to combine the speakers in series. Solder the positive (+) wire from one speaker to the negative (-) wire of the other speaker and wrap that up in electrical tape. Then take the other positive (+) wire and solder that to the "tip" terminal of the 1/4 inch jack. Then solder the other negative (-) wire to the "ring" terminal of the jack.

Thanks for spellin' it out for me, RC. I've just loaded on to customtone 13 new 'Tallica presets that I think are pretty true to form.

Alright. I'm always looking out for better tones. I'll check them out. Sure am glad that people share their tones.

Putting an ohmeter on speaker leads (disconnected from electronics of course) will give you something close to it's actual ohmmage. Close enough to determine if it's 8 or 16 ohms.

Note that putting an ohm meter on a speaker's terminals won't give you the actual impdeance of that speaker (especially if it is still hooked up to the amp).
 

Thank you for the reply, but I don't know how to break into my bundle to get the individual tones. Would the be something covered in the spider IV basic user guide?

Load up your bundle into Spider IV Edit by clicking "File->Load Bundle". Then click on the preset that you want to load into CustomTone and click "File->Save As" and save that preset into it's own preset file. Then you can upload that file into Customtone.

When you get the tone the way you want, hold down the channel button that you want to store it in (A, B, C or D) for a few seconds until all 4 channel buttons start flashing and it'll be saved on that channel.

Yes, just buy a 1/4 inch jack and connect the speakers to it. Your speakers are likely 8 ohms each. You can check this by hooking up an ohmmeter to the speaker leads. If it's 8 ohms each and you need 4 ohms then hook both of the sets of wires together (be sure and combine the two positive (+) wires together and the two negative (-) wires together). This will be a parallel arrangement that'll give you 4 ohms for your tube head. If you need 16 ohms then hook one speaker's negative (-) wire to the other speaker's positive (+) wire. The other two wires left will be your negative and positive leads for the jack.

Solder the positive wire to the "tip" and the negative wire to the ring of the 1/4 inch jack so the polarity is correct.

If you also need the spider's electronics to work with your speakers when your not using it as a speaker cab, then you can get a "defeating" jack that will disconnect your spider's electronics when you plug your tube head into it.

 

Yeah. Over the weekend, I did a pretty thorough test drive between the 75, 120, and 150 combos (as much as you can minus the shortboard). And I think I'm just gonna stick with what I have.

I bet that's a good decision. Haven't ever played through a 75, but it seems to have exactly the same of everything that the 120 and 150 have anyway. The stereo speakers of the 150 on chorus and stereo echo is pretty cool, but not that big of a deal.

The HD here only stands for "head." My understanding is that it has exactly the same amp modeling, efx, etc... as the spider iv 150, 120 and 75 combos (although the 75 is mono, not stereo). It is confusing though that Line 6 uses HD for two different designations for their products. 

Volume aside, I understand that the 150 head is the only "HD" product in the spider IV line-up. What precisely does the HD mean, and would it

be that much of an advantage over, say, the 120 or 150 combos in terms of sound quality? (bear in mind, I'm but a poor bedroom guitarist whose been playing for about 35 years and still have no skills whatsoever)

Whatever. Like I said, I own both the POD HD500 and a Spider IV HD150 head. Can't tell the difference in the model or effects quality. I actually like the Hi gain green (Diezel Herbert) on the HD150 better than any of  the POD HD500 amp models which is why I use it.
 

Great input guys. I learned a lot. I think, however, since I'm just a mediocre bedroom guitarist, I'll go with the 120 in order to hear that stereo sound.

I love the stereo sound from my hd150. The stereo echo is good and the chorus is incredible. I could be wrong, but I think that's one advantage that the HD150 and the 150 and 120 watt combo spider amps have even over the tube versions.

FWIW the 120 actually has 2x10 speakers instead of 2x12. The 150 combo has 2x12 speakers.

I do have a HD500 board which does definitely have the hd modeling and It doesn't seem to be any better than the amp modeling on all of my spider IVs including the little 15 watt (which is why I use my HD150's modeling instead of the HD500 board when I gig) so I had just assumed that line 6 had incorporated their best modeling into all of their products.

Also Line 6's mention of the modeling for the Spider IVs as having "the best sounding amp models we've ever made" fed my assumption that the best amp models Line 6 have ever made were incorporated into the Spider IVs which I would assume were the HD amp models, but apparently not.

I agree. My Marshall 4x12 is a closed back and it definitely thumps better. Sounds a lot louder tho, so I use the 2x12 open back cabinet in situations where the band can't crank.

The Flextone uses an earlier Line 6 modeling. The newer "HD" modeling is supposed to contain 10 times more information than previous modeling and be more accurate to the amps being modeled. The Spider IV has the HD modeling. I would hold out for the Spider IV.

FWIW, I use the HD150 Spider IV head with 2x12 (open back) and 4x12 Marshall cabinets (depending on the venue we're playing). Both have all G12T-75 Celestions in them and I think they both sound great cranked. I use the Hi Gain Green Diezel amp modeling.

Just want to add my thoughts. I'm not very familiar with either exact amp, but I do own an HD150 Spider IV head which is the 150 212 in a head version.  I play it though a 2x12 Marshall open back cabinet (G12T-75s). I've only played on a Spider Valve MII 212 at a music store.

For decades I've been a tube purist. I've always played through all tube amps because to my ear they've always had a superior sound to solid state amps. Recently however I bought the HD150 head as a backup to my JCM2000 Marshall head and when I tried playing the HD150 head at a rehearsal, the sound was so good that I decided to start using the HD150 as my gigging amp.

For me it's hard to completely evaluate an amp until I use it with a band. The HD150 has such an incredible sound to my ear (Diezal Herbert - higain green) when I play with drums and bass which goes against my tube purism. This is the first time I've ever preferred a solid state amp to a tube amp and the first time I've preferred anything to a Marshall equivalent. I'm sure that the Diezal Herbert that the higain green is modeling would be as good or better if I had one and it was cranked, but the HD150 Spider IV gets that power tube breakup sound at non-deafening sound levels that I need in most clubs we play.

I wish I would have played the Spider Valve mkii 212 more and with a band so I could speak more to it. It does sound great at all volume levels from what I could tell at the music store. I'm guessing that it might edge out the Spider IV 150 212 at higher volumes because of the real power tube breakup but at lower volumes it might not stand apart as much because both have Line 6's new excellent HD amp modeling.

You can pick up a used FBV Express Mkii (the smaller pedal board) for around $60 and that'll get you hooked up to a computer through it's USB. Look on Guitar Center's Used gear or ebay. Make sure you see the big dots on the Wah/Volume pedal or it isn't a mkii.

Hook your Shortboard up to your spider iv and hook it up to your computer via a USB cable. Download Spider Edit. Run Spider Edit and let it load up your presets (does it automatically when it comes up). Then click on "File" and click on "Save Bundle."

If you have a factory reset or otherwise lose your presets, then hook this all up again and click on "File" and "Load Bundle" and select your file. Then carefully click on "Receive All" and it'll upload your saved presets to your amp.