Blackheart Little Giant and the question of Ohms

[thisisnickpaige]

I was just gifted a Blackheart Little Giant. It’s a 5W Single-Ended, Class A with five jacks, two for 4-,two for 8-, and one for 16-ohm speaker outs. The amp has a tube pre and post, with a solid state rectifier.



The speaker is an Eminence 1216b rated for 16 ohm. But the cab has two inputs that read, “ 16 ohm parallel jacks “.

I understand that you shouldn’t go lower in ohms than an amp wants to see, but going higher isn’t the end of the world, you may just lose some output and resilience in sound. (Oversimplifying, I know). But what I can’t figure out is, what the amp is rated for, and if it is 16 ohm, why would they offer you the other four jacks? And why have the parallel jacks on the cab? Does that make using both jacks in parallel as 32 ohm or 8 ohm?

These are the questions of our times.

My thought is to use the 16 out from the amp into one of the 16 ins of the cab. Ideas?

[marqueemoon]

If you have a multimeter you can always just attch a speaker cable to the cab and use that to check the impedance. My guess is the other connection at the cab is a loop out so you can connect to a second cab.

As for the outputs on the amp I’d just check a manual and see what it has to say or contact the manufacturer.

[thisisnickpaige]

The manual was an obvious yet great idea. Sure enough, found it online. Looks like I can use whatever ohm I want as long as it matches. Never heard of that before. Thanks for the tip.