16 ohm amp head into 32ohm speaker?

[Coldsnow]

Is there anyway to use a guitar amp head with a 16 ohm speaker connector to a 32ohm speaker?

[hrn]

Think you should have a look inside the speaker and reconnect the cables to the speaker elements to 16 ohm. I have never heard of a single speaker with 32 ohms.

[barefoot]

It will work, but you'll just have less effective power transfer (i.e. you won't be able to turn it up as loud as you would a 16 Ohm speaker of equivalent efficiency).

Thomas

[NeoVXR]

if it is a valve amp, be careful, because it needs the correct damping of the speaker and can get too high voltages in the transformator when used with higher impedance - especially older models. the sound will be different also.

also connecting like this it will have ~1/2 the power.

re-wiring: I have no idea to get 16 ohms with the same speakers.
a) 8+8+8+8= 32 ohms serial circuit
8+8 || 8+8 = 8 ohms
b) 16+16 = 32
16 || 16 = 8

but it's perfect if you can get another speaker of the same type...
32 || 32 = 16

[hrn]

NeoVXR is right....

On solid state gear a high speaker (summed and out from the cabinet) impendance (read 16 ohm) could give you a better "damping factor". Meaning, slowing down the speaker cone faster after a signal is over. This is taken from the HIFI world and I cannot see why it would not be the same in the musician gear area.

[NeoVXR]

oops
I did not use correct grammar...

but both is true:
1. a valve amp needs damping from the speaker else it can suffer from a voltage breakthrough. only some modern constructions can tolerate that. when the connection breaks while playing loud, this can blow up the device at once. playing high volumes with speaker impedance higher than specified could do harm on some models also. (watch for flickering blue light in the power valves. if it is too bright they can have a shorter life, also when glowing red all over.)
2. a speaker sounds better with damping from an amp which has a very low-impedance output, and when the cable is thick and has no loss.
only with valve guitar and bass amps this can be different, and speaker resonance becomes part of the system construction. then you will get a change in sound when changing impedance. trial and error...
it is recommended to _combine_ systems as recommended, else you experiment on risk of your own wallet..