Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility Jump to content

Use My Spider As Just A Cab?


breadtruck
 Share

Recommended Posts

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The speakers in the 210 should be 8 ohms each - make sure you understand the amp head's capabilities to handle loads of differing impedance (some amps will eventually overheat and blow out components if presented with too low an impedance).

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).

Also note that the Spider amps' speakers have been designed to give a fairly flat response, so if you use them with a 'typical' guitar amp (tube or not) that does not have modeling, you may not get the sound you are expecting.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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).
 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the replies guys. Yes the speakers are 8 ohms, it says so on the back. With this in mind, I have 4 cables in total coming from the speakers; can you explain how I would have to connect them to the 1/4" jack?

 

Also, can I get a 1/4" jack where you can just clip the speakers wires onto it instead of soldering them on? The wires connected to my speakers already are just clipped on and it's a lot easier than having to re-buy soldering equipment too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks a ton for the detailed info dude. :)  It's always super helpful for an electronics noob like me to get a detailed breakdown of what needs to be done. If my funds remain tight then most likely I will be going down this route instead of buying a seperate cab.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

I would avoid using clips or anything other than solder.

WHY.?

 

Well for me main reason would be Vibration of the amp from the sound and speaker movement. If your a loud player there will be quite a bit of vibration that could possibly casuse one  of the clips your talking about vibrating..

 

You can toast your amp pretty quick if that happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...