Longtime WGS speaker user here. I have an Avatar 2x12" that has an 8 ohm Green Baret and an 8ohm Veteran 30 in it, wired in series to 16 ohms. I have a few amps with 8 ohms speakers so that's actually why I went with the 16 ohm load: more flexibility to try out other speakers. Anyhow, the cabinet sounds particularly great with those speakers and that impedance with every amp that goes through it.
Now this is the conundrum: I have read all over the Internet about this very subject of 8ohms vs 16ohms and understand that speakers should sound exactly the same if they are the same model speaker but with different impedances while connected to the matched impedance tap of amp. Some folks have intense feelings that 8 ohm cabinets sound the best (matched to an 8 ohm amplifier), or 16 ohms sounds best (matched, likewise), etc. A lot of the info is contrary where there is a faction people are saying a 16 ohm cabinet sounds brighter, and a 8 ohm cabinet has more low end and is darker, and faction claiming the complete opposite. Then there is a faction saying there is should be no difference. Are there are sonic generalizations one could gather from knowing a cabinet is a specific impedance?
Anywho, I figured some who knows a lot about speakers would be the person to answer this: not guitar players! We're kinda dumb! :-). Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself? Thanks!
No ... if the impedance of the cab properly reflects what the output transformer (in a tube amp) is looking to see ... then all cabs should sound the same. Of course, a mis-match will effect the tone (say a 4-ohm cab on an amp that wants 8).
One more side note ... one of the reasons a Fender 4x10 Super Reverb or Bassman sounds like it does is because of the unusual (Big w/lots of winds) transformers in them that are looking for a 2-ohm load. It's NOT the 2-ohm speaker cab that makes the difference, however ... it's the output transformer!
Hi Travis,
I´m not sure about same speaker sounding exactly identical with different impedances.
There is a need to change the speaker techinically, to achieve different impedances. For this reason a 16Ohm is not identical to an 8Ohm, though they might be pretty close. They are twins, but not same.
The question is, if these differences are audible. I´d bet so. I´d take preference of WGS over Jensen in 90% when it comes to speakers. But there is something quite revealing on Jensentone.com about speakerimpedances, which might not be rooted in the brand, but in physics:
Jensentone give different frequencycharts to the same speakers with different impedances. It´s easy to see, that the differences should be clearly audible. It´s also very interestig, that there´s being a big difference depending on which speaker. So the center frequency and all over frequency response, as well as the speakers topology might have a big influence on how much the sound is influenced by its being 16 or 8 Ohm.
So the technical difference between the versions in different impedances should differ between clearly audible and neglectible depending on the very loudspeaker. But they ARE there.
best regards
Heiko