Guitars

Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 157 Location: Wales

Its my birthday next week so i decided to treat myself and get a RANDALL RT503 50watt guitar head, i dont gig allot so i thought this would be suitable for my practise room. It should be coming in a couple of weeks.

Then i got a phone call of my Dad's friend saying that he had a RS412XL, that he didnt want anymore and wanted to give it to me.

I have never set-up a head and cab before and to be honest the Ohms and wattages between them confuse me. The head has an 8ohm and 4ohm speaker out port and the cab has a 4ohm and 16ohm mono port. Am i right in saying that i can connect the 2 using the 4ohm ports? Also, with the head being 50watts and the cab being able to support 400watts, will this work?

On the cab itself it has 2 selector switches for "Bright", "Norm" and "Dark", do these influence the sound much? Also, there is a switch for "Lift" and "Gnd", can anyone tell me what this does?

Like i said, im a No0b when it comes to these sort of things.

Thanks for any feedback

Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:11 pm

The general rule of thumb is that an amp can push uphill, but not downhill. If you plugged an 8 ohm output into a 4 ohm cab, you'd blow the head. You could plug 8 ohm into 16 ohm, but you'd lose a little power because your ohm rating is more or less the impedance or resistance; ohm matching is the way to go, so you'll be flying if you use 4 to 4.

As far as the cab switches influencing tone, how about you wait to try it out and tell us what they do?

Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:17 pm

Oh, also as an addendum to the above post: Make sure that you use speaker cable to connect your head and cab. Speaker cable specifically.

If you use a regular old guitar cable, you risk your amp/cab going kaput. Guitar cable use less sturdy wire than speaker cables, and running a lot of juice through them can cause them to short out. Plus, they're shielded which can cause impedance issues.

Similarly, don't use speaker cable to connect your guitar to your amp, unless you particuarly like playing along to the radio.

Joined: 23 Nov 2005 Posts: 8293 Location: Ontario, Canada

martynmordecai wrote:

On the cab itself it has 2 selector switches for "Bright", "Norm" and "Dark", do these influence the sound much? Also, there is a switch for "Lift" and "Gnd", can anyone tell me what this does?

That stuff only works when you use the mic eliminator jacks at the back. Congrats on the new cab. I'm trying o sell one like this only the XXL with V30's. No takers so far. Its really cool that yoiu got a free cab.

Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 157 Location: Wales

what-a-cool-username wrote:

The general rule of thumb is that an amp can push uphill, but not downhill. If you plugged an 8 ohm output into a 4 ohm cab, you'd blow the head. You could plug 8 ohm into 16 ohm, but you'd lose a little power because your ohm rating is more or less the impedance or resistance; ohm matching is the way to go, so you'll be flying if you use 4 to 4.

Thanks for that,

Yeah, im pretty shocked to get a free one too. I dont really talk to the guy

Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 157 Location: Wales

Correct me if im wrong, but does this mean i can use one of the speaker outputs on my Line6 Spider II (which is at 8 OHM) and plug it into my R412 cab using the 16 OHM jack set to mono?

would it matter which output i use from the Line 6?

Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 157 Location: Wales

Also, i would i go about hooking up my MAudo Fast Track Pro to an amp?

Joined: 27 Oct 2010 Posts: 723 Location: Greenwood, IN

martynmordecai wrote:

Correct me if im wrong, but does this mean i can use one of the speaker outputs on my Line6 Spider II (which is at 8 OHM) and plug it into my R412 cab using the 16 OHM jack set to mono?

would it matter which output i use from the Line 6?

I have a Randall RG80 ES with 8 ohm outputs that I run (one of them) into a Marshall 1960 16 ohm cab... so, yeah, that should work.

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:19 pm

amp output jack says 4ohm --> okay into a 4, 8, or 16 ohm cab.

amp output jack says 8ohm --> okay into a 8, or 16 ohm cab.

amp output jack says 16ohm --> okay into a 16 ohm cab.

I run one amp into 1 mono cab..., nothing fancy, so this will all work.

If you want to run in stereo or run two cabs, consult your amps manual.