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Cabinet Wiring Diagrams

This page provides links to downloadable wiring diagrams for the various Sound City speaker cabinets you might own. These are admittedly crude examples (I'm no artist), but they are accurate. Also, these diagrams can be used with any cabs that have two or four of any size speaker (10s, 12s, 15s, etc.).

  • Here is a link to a page that describes speaker wiring generically and mathematically (with equations).
  • Here is a link to a Sound City site page that discusses measuring what's called DC resistance (Re), from which you can determine and extrapolate the nominal impedance of a speaker or speaker cabinet, and
  • Here is a link to an impedance calculator that works very well (courtesy of Sadowsky Audio and Sadowsky Guitars, Ltd.).

Please note that all the following linked files are in PDF format, which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader be installed on your computer. (Click here to download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader if you need it.)

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Please Note: The L610 wiring diagram above shows six 16-ohm speakers, but at least one L610 cab I've seen has had six 8-ohm speakers; therefore, the same equation shown in the wiring diagram can be used, but the combined DC resistance (Re) would yield a measured 5.333 ohms; therefore, the cab's nominal impedance would be 8 ohms.
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Please Note: As you view the following two wiring diagrams, please realize there is much discussion about what series-parallel wiring looks like versus what parallel-series wiring looks like. I believe this is a semantics issue more than anything because electrically, these two methods are the same. Also, many people feel they can hear differences between the two; I'm not one of these people. So, if my parallel-series wiring diagram looks like someone else's series-parallel diagram, so be it. I think it's just semantics. But I've been wrong before!
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  • Wiring Two Cabs in Series
    This wiring scheme can be used for any two cabs as long as A) they each have the same nominal impedance (2, 4, or 8 ohms each) and B) their combined nominal impedance isn't greater than 16 ohms when connected in series.
What's "Parallel-Series-Parallel" you ask?

I know this is a Sound City site, but some bass players might be using their SC heads with these very popular 8x10 Ampeg cabs, which have two sets of four 10-inch speakers in them. If you use one of these cabs, here's a way to rewire each set of four 32-ohm 10s in parallel-series so that when you use the two sets of four 10s together (in mono, i.e., in parallel) your SC amp sees an optimum 16-ohm load.

Hence, my use of the term Parallel-Series-Parallel. For what this might be worth...
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If you have suggestions for corrections to errors I might have made, please send me email.
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