External Speaker- How do I make it work for me?

Lincoln Goertzen · Post by **Lincoln Goertzen** » 3 Jul 2004 7:25 am

My older brother just bought a Peavey TKO 115 bass amp, used, and with it came a 212 cabinet that the guy probably made himself. He said that it added some high end to his bass sound, but my brother doesn't need that.

So he's thinking of selling it to me. I would like to use it with my Peavey Classic Chorus 212, and kind of have a stereo sound, but I don't actually have an 'external speaker jack' on my amp. I tried plugging it into my preamp out jacks, but that didn't work at all. No sound came through this cabinet. Maybe I should try a real 'speaker' cable instead of a 'guitar' cable, but I don't think it will make that much of a difference.

My main question is this: What kind of device do I need to make this cabinet work as an external speaker? I assume that I will at least need some kind of electronic signal processor to do that.

Or, will it never work at all without a bonafide external speaker jack?

Thank you all in advance.

Lincoln

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 3 Jul 2004 9:16 am

I'm a little confused, but I'd say you'd have to Y the speaker cables and piggyback a jack for a speaker cable into each, OR, if you just want to use the speakers in the new cabinet, you'd have to disconnect your speakers and put a female plug on each one and plug into them. That would be easy enough.

I imagine a duplex stereo cable and male/female jack wired from your two speaker feeds would do this.

"Piggybacking" your new double speaker cabinet onto your old one would of course cut your per square inch sound by half, and only drive twice the amount of speakers half as much. You wouldn't really lose anything but neither would you gain. It wouldn't hurt your amp, it just wouldn't push your total speaker area any more.

Unless I"m misunderstanding yor question, lines out, like your preamp out are not the same animal as the line to your speakers. Not even close.

EJL

Jim Florence · Post by **Jim Florence** » 3 Jul 2004 10:32 am

Your pre amp out jacks are just that Pre-amp outputs/ They won't drive a speaker. That requires a power amp. Don't go hooking up more speakers to your amp until you are somewhat familiar with the output load requirement for your amp. If you make the right kind of mistake on your amp load requirement, you won't have an amp to worry about.

David Higginbotham · Post by **David Higginbotham** » 3 Jul 2004 11:07 am

What Jim Said! Be very careful! For instance, if your amp is rated for a 4 ohm load and you are trying to run 2-4 ohm speakers, you will likely damage the amp. If it is rated for a 4 ohm load, you can run 2-8 ohm speakers together to acheive a 4 ohm load, but it will not be like running 2 channels with separate control capabilities.

Lincoln Goertzen · Post by **Lincoln Goertzen** » 3 Jul 2004 1:27 pm

[light goes on] Ah Hah! I was wondering about some of these things exactly.

There goes that idea.

Just one more question: could I use my preamp out jacks to drive a Powered speaker like the Peavey PX-300?

Thank you all for your input.

Lincoln

David Higginbotham · Post by **David Higginbotham** » 3 Jul 2004 1:54 pm

Mike Brown · Post by **Mike Brown** » 3 Jul 2004 6:35 pm

Your Classic Chorus 212 amp is designed to produce its full output wattage into its two internal speakers. I recommend that you obtain an additional power amp to power your new 2-12" cab.

The procedure for doing this is to use the two PREAMP OUT jacks connected via two shielded instrument cables to an external stereo power amp. Then, power your external stereo cabinet from that power amp.

Peavey solid state amplifiers can operate all day long with no speaker load. It can also operate using a load impedance lower than what it is rated for. The question is, "how long will it operate under these conditions?'

The bottom line is that the amp is designed to produce full power into the two internal speakers. By attaching, an additional speaker cabinet using any method other than the one that I described about will sacrifice performance.

Mike Brown
Peavey Electronics Corporation

James Morehead · Post by **James Morehead** » 3 Jul 2004 9:15 pm

You would need to also check to see if the speakers in that home made cab are wired series or parallel.

Daryl Stogner · Post by **Daryl Stogner** » 4 Jul 2004 8:56 am

I have a Peavey 260 power amp. Will add a Pro Fex II to it.

The 260 amp is rated at 130watts RMS stereo for each channel A&B at 4 Ohms.

Now I want to add speakers, so couldn't I use both the BW 12" and the BW 15" in say monitor style cabs and they will be right for the power amp Ohm ratings?

Also, the power amp has settings for parallel. It has 2 inputs for the A & B channels and 4 outputs for speakers. Seems to me plugging one speaker into each channel is all I need to do. But the parallel setting confuses me. Anyone with some thoughts on all of this.