hacked amp to 12W 8Ohm speakers

[rchadd]

For my mame cab I am planning to use the amp out of a set of old PC speakers. I am not sure of the RMS power rating of the amp. but i see that the speakers were rated at 8W 4 Ohm.

For my cab i have got already got 12W 8 Ohm shielded speakers.

Will the amp work ok with these speakers?

What effect with the difference in ohms rating make?

Maybe I should consider a different amp?

[D_Zoot]

rchadd,

It likely won't be as loud, but it will work just fine.

Generally speaking, you can use speaker of higher impedance than what any given amp is designed for.  For example, if an amp is designed to drive an 8 ohm load, you could use 8, 10, 12 ohm speakers.  The typical lower design threshold for most amps is 4 ohms, some amps bottom out at 8.  Some high power PA amps and well designed car audio amps can run as low as 2 ohms.

The main point is just never go lower than what an amp is designed to handle (don't use a 2 ohm load on a 4 ohm amp) and you'll do fine.


D

[Craig]

Your 12W speakers will be just fine. You will not get it's full power like the 4 ohm ones though. Avoid reaching it's limit on the amplifier though.

I gutted a pair of 120W PMPO (PMPO is garbage)  PC speakers and I found some really good stuff inside! I got a pair of 4" 7.5W woofers and an amplifier board with two TDA2030A 18W amp ICs. Even some crappy PC speakers out there have some decent enough stuff inside.