# Running 120w head into a 60w cab.



## breadtruck (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey all. A bit of a n00bish question here but I am totally clueless when it comes to this stuff:

So a few months ago I got my Orange Crush 120w Head and an Orange PPC 1x12 cab. They were sold together and I saw a lot of deals at the time these came out that were selling them together. So naturally even though I knew nothing about ohms or whatever I assumed they would work fine. Fast forward a few months and I have been using the amp and cab a lot. Mostly for bedroom levels, but have done a handful of gigs and 20+ practices at high volumes. Everything sounds fine! (The tone totally rocks by the way! Solid state amps get a rough rep but this thing is awesome. Try one out if you ever get the chance.)

So just now I read a forum thread on some other site about a guy running another 120w amp head into the same cab I have, which is rated at 60w. A few people were saying he shouldn't do that and there was a chance of blowing the speaker. So now I'm freaking out wondering if this could happen to me. I mean so far I've had no problems. The loudest I run my amp on is like 7 for both master and channel volumes, and I've never experienced anything unpleasant. My brother was checking out my amp when I first got it and said that I'm probs only getting half the power because I'm only connecting one 16 ohm cab when it supports two; if this is true then is it like running 60w amp into 60w cab? I even looked up my amp on the Orange website and for speaker settings it simply says:

*You can run three cab configurations on the CR120 head:*
*- One 16 ohm cab connected to the one of the speaker outputs.*
*- Two 16 ohm cabs connected to both speaker outputs, or daisy-chained together to one of the speaker outputs.*
*- One 8 ohm cab connected to one of the speaker outputs.*


My 1x12 is 16ohms so I guess I'm in the clear there. Logically I would assume that they wouldn't recommend connecting their 1x12 if it was dangerous, but after reading these random forum posts I'm now paranoid my cab and amp are going to explode and my house is going to burn down...so if anyone could talk to me about this and let me know if my setup is safe or not I would be very appreciative!


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## teamSKDM (Jun 17, 2014)

at a low-bedroom volume you may be good... but I wouldnt reccomend it high volumes at alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll


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## cjms1997 (Jun 17, 2014)

I recommend getting a big boy 120w cab. 

At bedroom levels, I'm sure you won't blow anything up as long as the Ohms match up, but I would lay off playing too loudly. Like I said, get a 120w cab when you get the chance. 

And as far as I know, the head wouldn't blow up. The cab might, but your amp should be fairly safe. As far as I know that is, I would check other sources rather than believing me.


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## TheWinterSnow (Jun 17, 2014)

Running a lower wattage cabinet can be dangerous if you push the cabinet too far, a typical simple solution is to half the impedance on the amp, which would then limit the amp to 60w, however, your amp is locked to 16 ohms only. Another solution would be to add another 16 ohm (dummy load or another cabinet) load in series to the speaker to get a total of 32 ohms, which again reduces output power, the unfortunate side to that is that you do get a change in tone by doing so. 

Even if the tone doesn't sound bad, you always run the risk of blowing the speaker if you push the volume too hard. You could impose a limit on yourself and with an SPL meter and there are many free phone apps to and never exceed the sensitivity rating of the speaker. For a Vintage 30 and other 60W speakers that is about 97dB one meter away from the speaker, which is deafening for bedroom volumes and more than plenty of volume to mic for live use. To top that all of at ~97dB SPL you are only dissipating 1W, in order to get double the perceived volume (~107dB SPL) you would need 10W and to get double that (~117dB SPL) you would need 100W, the difference of 20dB would require 99 more watts and brings you to volumes comparable to rock concerts, but still not that much louder than if the amp was only pushing out 1W. Power is a pretty tricky thing because it is logarithmic (at least sound energy to perceived volume), not linear.


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## Promit (Jun 17, 2014)

Considering the Crush is a solid state amp, I actually wouldn't worry about it as long as you keep the volume below half or so.But don't blame me if it blows up.


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## breadtruck (Jun 18, 2014)

This news is really worrying to me considering I've played it very loud on many occasions. I mean the speaker is obviously working but I hope I haven't damaged it in any way. 

As far as my amps ohms, is it locked to 16 ohms? On the back it says minimum total 8 ohms. It says I can connect one 16 ohm cab , two 16 ohm cabs, or one 8 ohm cab. If I have just the one 16 ohm cab connected, does it half the output wattage to ~60w? If so does that mean I'm safe for now as long as I'm not cranking it to 100%?


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## Baelzebeard (Jun 18, 2014)

Yeah, solid state amps produce less power into higher impedance loads. Not exactly half, depending on the particularities of each amp somewhere between 33-66% less power.

You do need to be careful with your speaker, even when wattage is matched speakers can get damaged. Amp clipping can cause huge power spikes well exceeding the rated power of an amp.

I know that playing distorted guitar makes it near impossible to hear if a speaker is, itself distorting, so you just have to be mindful of your volume a bit. But don't worry too much.

You could get another 16ohm 1x12, and you would get some extra volume at the same amp level.


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## breadtruck (Jun 18, 2014)

Thanks man that makes sense. I have a practice tomorrow so I'm going to have to continue chancing it at the moment, but in the future I might try replacing the speaker or getting a cheap 2x12. Another 1x12 cab would be awesome for sure but just a bit impractical for gigging. Don't know if I would even fit another cab in the band car with everyone elses stuff.


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## VBCheeseGrater (Jun 18, 2014)

Baelzebeard said:


> Yeah, solid state amps produce less power into higher impedance loads. Not exactly half, depending on the particularities of each amp somewhere between 33-66% less power.



Yup this is what i was thinking too. At 16ohms, I would think as long as you don't crank it (and maybe not even then) you won't need to worry about it much. 

Bass players in particular will often have say a 1200 watt amp into 600 watts of cabs without issue. I'm not saying it's ideal, but it's common practice, and i've gigged like that without any problems.


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## breadtruck (Jun 18, 2014)

VBCheeseGrater said:


> Yup this is what i was thinking too. At 16ohms, I would think as long as you don't crank it (and maybe not even then) you won't need to worry about it much.
> 
> Bass players in particular will often have say a 1200 watt amp into 600 watts of cabs without issue. I'm not saying it's ideal, but it's common practice, and i've gigged like that without any problems.



It's very assuring to hear this. I'm still not sure on what I will do but it's taken me a long time to get settled with some gear and to have to start replacing things again would be a massive pain. Like I said, 7 is about the loudest my amp gets and I never need to crank it past that. I've been oblivious about this since I got my amp back in like....mid november...so if it's been fine since then I'm hoping it will stay fine.


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## david_pri (Jun 18, 2014)

if you dont play loud, there is no problem


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## breadtruck (Jun 18, 2014)

david_pri said:


> if you dont play loud, there is no problem



I already said I do play loud. I play gigs and have band practices weekly. For the gigs i'm usually at around 50% volume as I'm being mic'd up, but for band practices it gets pretty damn loud at like 70% volume. Anyway at the moment I think I've decided on carrying on with my current setup. As I understand it now; because I'm only using one 16ohm cab my amp isn't outputting the full 120w so it's less dangerous than I first thought. I understand that it's still not recommended but I don't ever see myself needing to turn it up more than I do for band practices, and that has been fine for months so hopefully nothing goes wrong! If I have the spare cash lying around in the future then I will either upgrade the speaker or get a cheap 2x12.


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## TheWinterSnow (Jun 18, 2014)

breadtruck said:


> As far as my amps ohms, is it locked to 16 ohms? On the back it says minimum total 8 ohms. It says I can connect one 16 ohm cab , two 16 ohm cabs, or one 8 ohm cab. If I have just the one 16 ohm cab connected, does it half the output wattage to ~60w? If so does that mean I'm safe for now as long as I'm not cranking it to 100%?



If it says 120w @ 8 ohms, then you get 60w if you plug in a 16 ohm cabinet. Most solid state amps that aren't in home theater and low frequency stuff (subwoofers) are 8 ohms, and the fact the amp is rated at 120w but has an 8 ohm minimum would mean that the amp is 120w @ 8 ohms, if that was at 16 ohms they would have called it a 240w amp. Only having 60w would explain why you need to crank the amp so hard, you are getting just more than one and one half times more volume than a 1W amp would give you.

That is how power rating traditionally work, so I am 99% sure that is the way it is, unless Orange did some weird stuff, but I doubt it considering they have very little in their specifications on the amp, which if they did do something less traditional would cause problems that they would either be liable for or would have to clear up, so I am sure they kept it safe.

Also what was mentioned earlier is even matched power ratings between amp and cab, you can still blow speakers, but personally I wouldn't worry about it. Even with high distortion you can still hear what is called "farting" out which is a pretty nasty low frequency distortion. Then again an non-transformer coupled solid state amp will not have power bursts over the amp rating, the only power voltage spikes are generated from the speaker but that doesn't affect total power through the speaker. 60w is pushing is and the speaker might get a little hit internally, but again, I personally wouldn't worry about it.


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## breadtruck (Jun 19, 2014)

Thanks for the perspective, pal


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