Rewiring a tranny combo so that it can be used as a cab for a valve head?

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I have an orange valve head (15w) that sounds great. The idea was that I take it to gigs and plug it into cabs they gave at venues.
However.
Increasingly venues only have combo amps . . usually pretty shit ones.
I have a 1x8inch cab I can use with it, but when I took that to a venue (for micing up) the sound man said it was too thin / not loud enough and I probably needed a 12inch speaker.
I was looking at just buying a 1x12 cab but they are a minimum of around £100 and a bit big/heavy.

I do however have an orange crush 30r tranny amp. It's small and light. only 10kg. It has a 30w four ohm speaker.
However, unlike my valve combos, it is hardwired rather than having the option to disconnect the amp section from the speaker.

Can I just snip the wires and connect two female sockets to each end. Then I could either patch them to continue to use the built in tranny amp, or plug in my external head?

Is there anything I should be concerned about? (obviously I would match the impedance - the Orange dark terror head has outputs for 4 8 and 16)

Will something explode?

 

[A380]

I don't know but video it so you can post any explosions on here please.

 

[Orang Utan]

Didn’t think you were allowed to use that word any more

 

[SpookyFrank]

I have an orange valve head (15w) that sounds great. The idea was that I take it to gigs and plug it into cabs they gave at venues.
However.
Increasingly venues only have combo amps . . usually pretty shit ones.
I have a 1x8inch cab I can use with it, but when I took that to a venue (for micing up) the sound man said it was too thin / not loud enough and I probably needed a 12inch speaker.
I was looking at just buying a 1x12 cab but they are a minimum of around £100 and a bit big/heavy.

I do however have an orange crush 30r tranny amp. It's small and light. only 10kg. It has a 30w four ohm speaker.
However, unlike my valve combos, it is hardwired rather than having the option to disconnect the amp section from the speaker.

Can I just snip the wires and connect two female sockets to each end. Then I could either patch them to continue to use the built in tranny amp, or plug in my external head?

Is there anything I should be concerned about? (obviously I would match the impedance - the Orange dark terror head has outputs for 4 8 and 16)

Will something explode?

I would find a wiring diagram for a bog standard cap and see if you can make what you've got look like that. AFAIK a cab is just a speaker in a box so there's no reason it couldn't be done.

 

[19sixtysix]

Didn’t think you were allowed to use that word any more

You can but you have to explain it to children

 

[ouirdeaux]

Is anyone else following this thread despite not having a scooby what it's about?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

He wants to turn a combination amp/speaker into being able to unplug the amp from the speaker to plug into a speaker cabinet at gigs.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t work…

 

[Magnus McGinty]

The amp would need to be powerful enough to drive whatever cabinet you were plugging into. I’d check that before reaching for the pliers…

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

The amp would need to be powerful enough to drive whatever cabinet you were plugging into. I’d check that before reaching for the pliers…

I did say that the speaker was 30w 4ohm and the head was 15w valve amp and was capable of matching the 4ohm impedance.
As long as the amp is not louder than what the speaker can take I assume that should be ok.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I would find a wiring diagram for a bog standard cap and see if you can make what you've got look like that. AFAIK a cab is just a speaker in a box so there's no reason it couldn't be done.

Yes as far as I am aware it is just a matter of checking which wire is tip and which is ring, but the wiring diagram should be just speaker to socket (though I will be doing that at both ends so I can over patch it with speaker cable to continue to use the tranny should I need to).

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Didn’t think you were allowed to use that word any more

I got banned from a guitar forum on Facebook for arguing that using the terms 'knob, female /male, naked finish' were all normal guitar tech terms. . . bit of a shame as I was half way through being helped out fixing one of my guitars (still in bits three years on).

I'm obviously out of touch. My daughter had to explain to me that I couldn't call cigarettes 'fags'.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

OK. Good news and bad news.

Good news - It turns out I can just pull the tranny combo connectors off the speaker and buy a speaker cable that connects direct. This means that instead of drilling and soldering, I can just switch the amp over as I please (though it would not be advisable to do it repeatedly I guess).
I can also tottally remover the transistor head section from the wooden amp case.

Bad news - when I discovered I could remove the cables from the speaker I got so exited that I just yanked them both out. . . . soooo I am wondering. . . does it make a difference which is which? It kind of feels like maybe it does, as one is red and one is black. I have no idea which one to put back where.
More bad news. I might not be able to match the 4 ohm impedance. Got to check that out.

Anyone who knows about wiring speaker up please chip in.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

It does yes but I don’t think reversed polarity will blow anything up. It might sound wrong. It does everything in reverse but in some cases it may produce no audible difference. (I’m assuming this is mono rather than stereo as is usually the case with guitar amp/speakers…)

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Yes it seems you are correct. Just reverses the phase doesn't make a difference unless I am using it with other speakers wired the other way. Looks like the positive is always first clockwise connection (when facing the back) anyway, so no biggie.

What is a biggie though is that it turns out that the head I want to use will explode a 4 ohm speaker (or explode my head, I can't remember which).
I can only do 8 or 16 or combinations or two 8s or two 16s.

My new question is. . . . can I replace the 4ohm speaker with an 8ohm one and still run the tranny head (much more forgiving than valve) meant for the 4ohm speaker into the 8? So that I am still able to switch them around if I need to.

Am I better off just making my own flipping cab? It just seems to be a speaker in a wooden box.





ONe more oddity. My 80s Marshall 8ohm valve combo has a 15 ohm speaker in it. . . . What the hell is that all about? 15 ohms?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I tend to just throw money at problems rather than Fuck something up experimentally resulting in me having to throw money anyway but having less equipment than I started with…
So I’d build my own cab. Or probably buy one.
Or buy a gigging amp.

 

[Elpenor]

Didn’t think you were allowed to use that word any more

I knew via a friend a woman of Vietnamese heritage whose surname was Tran, her nickname was Tranny… I’ve not seen her for getting on for a decade as she moved to London but I’d be surprised if it’s still her nickname!

 

[Magnus McGinty]

It used to be slang for a portable transformer also although not heard it referred to as such for a decade at least.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I tend to just throw money at problems rather than Fuck something up experimentally resulting in me having to throw money anyway but having less equipment than I started with…
So I’d build my own cab. Or probably buy one.
Or buy a gigging amp.

I have several amps / heads / combos, but wanted a small cab for my small valve head.
I have a 8ohm 10inch cab but it is too small. All the cabs for sale are too big and heavy. I just want a light, small, 10 or 12 inch one speaker cab at 8 ohms.
It just so happened that the orange 30r was just the right size and weight. The only bummer is the 4ohm speaker that will have my head working twice as hard. Could wear the valves, maybe blow something.

I guess I could just buy a speaker and try my hand at a bit of carpentry with some light but strong wood.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It used to be slang for a portable transformer also although not heard it referred to as such for a decade at least.

What do people call tranny amps now then?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

What do people call tranny amps now then?

I’m assuming you mean transistor? Dunno tbh I didn’t even know they were referred to as such.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Oh it means transformer also. I think.

 

[WouldBe]

I’m assuming you mean transistor? Dunno tbh I didn’t even know they were referred to as such.

People were calling transistor radios trannies back in the 70's.

 

[PursuedByBears]

What do people call tranny amps now then?

Them amps?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

People were calling transistor radios trannies back in the 70's.

Just known collectively as ‘the wireless’ in my neck of the woods.

 

[ouirdeaux]

When was the last time you saw a transistor radio?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

When was the last time you saw a transistor radio?

As an aside, I bought a Technics all in one recently. The Digital radio basically doesn’t work and the internet works better.

 

[petee]

When was the last time you saw a transistor radio?

honestly, there's one lying on the table in front of me now (a palm sized SW radio). but I'm a radio oddball.

 

[JimW]

honestly, there's one lying on the table in front of me now (a palm sized SW radio). but I'm a radio oddball.

Had a great little shortwave I used to listen to world service when I worked somewhere really remote, loved getting English football commentary up a mountain on the edge of the Tibetan plateau.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

So I am now at the stage that I am taking the 15ohm speaker out of my 50w marshall that I never use (too loud, waaay too heavy), putting it in my Orange 30r casing and plugging in my orange dark terror head. . . .
this is all well and good, but I feel sad for the orange 30r which has only effectively given the wood housing to my project.
It's also a terrible waste of a marshall amp that is probably worth around £500 or more, though I guess I can easily put it back together again at some point.

Bah, why was that speaker 4ohms? It's ruined everything.

 

[tim]

When was the last time you saw a transistor radio?

For me transistor radio just means smallish radio, so about an hour ago.