Can I play a Marshall 4ohm guitar amp over my 8ohm home speakers?

Question

Without damaging the amp or the speakers, I want to play my Marshall 4ohm guitar amp with my 8ohm speakers to my home stereo. I know the speakers can handle the power as far as wattage goes, however I'm not sure how the mixing and matching of different ohms works and I don't want to fry/blow anything. Can I do it? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

If you load an amp with lower impedance speakers (2 Ohms for instance, when you parallel two 4 Ohm speakers), then the amp will have to provide a higher current, which could overheat the output transistors. But your case is the opposite, so you should have no problem. The amps rating tells you the power that can deliver at different load impedances. A transistor amp output impedance is very low, so it can drive any impedance, but no lower than the specified. When you use 8 Ohms speakers you will get less power than with 4 Ohms speakers.

Answer 2

The incident of overpowering amps is not here.  The

   source of power is the initial monitor issue.  To use a

   pre-amp, private generator or battery line source could

  mix ohms because that is the description of output watt

  command.  You do not intend to master the signal.  To use

  a mixer board or a p.a. monitor board would be for live play.

  To play in a light venue you do not even enter the realm of

   exploding your lines, which are the first thing to go.  The

   wiring is new, the power is steady, the output is clear and

   to keep those in that ratio you need play within household

   watt command levels, say under 20 decibels.  20 decibels

   of house watts is equal to turning up the radio full blast.

   You most likely will be right there if you keep the sound clean.

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Answer 3

If your Marshall is a tube amp DON'T it can ruin your amp but you should have switch to send an 8ohm load. If its a solid state Marshall it will be fine . The tube amp sends out power different than a solid state amp and the ohm load has to be matched. With the solid state amp it don't matter as much becuase it runs the same no matter what. I do know about ohm loads with the speaker cabs for ex. 2 8ohm cabs to the head will be a 4ohm load but a single cab would be 8ohms.

Answer 4

YES

you should be ok.

You can always use higher ohm speakers but not lower ohm speakers.

Be sure the amp is rated to handle 4 ohms. Look at the speaker jack. Read in the manual. It should say the minimum ohms allowable. If it is rated to handle 4 ohms then you can use anything above that. 6,8,16. It does not matter if it is a tube amp or solid state.

Your amp will actually work less and have an easier time running 8 ohm over 4 ohm.