OffsetGuitars.com

There is something up with that speaker cable, could just be that you ate a slice of pizza and did not wash your hands leaving a nice layer of grease to keep your meter probes from making good contact, could be a bit of corrosion, could be a bad solder or even a bad jack.

I would figure it out, you may have been lucking out with that cable so far.

unplug each speaker and mesure the resistance. best tip i can give.

I did measure each speaker and they are reading 8ohm. What I am saying is with all of my speaker cabinets if I meter the speaker cable tip and sleeve the ohms jump all over the place but if I use a normal guitar cable to tip test the ohm readings work correctly. This is the same with more than one speaker to amp cable I have.

Maybe it is possible I am not getting a good read using the speaker cable because it is designed for a higher current than the meter is sending? Guitar and patch cables are for a much weaker signal so it is possible that is why I get a better reading using that?

It is just thicker copper and better insulation, 18awg copper wire has a resistance of about 6ohms for every thousand feet. Since your reading is jumping all over the place that suggests either a bad joint in the cable or your meter leads are not making solid contact. Unscrew the barrel of the cables and stick the meter right against the solders and see what you get.

However, your guess about current could explain why the cables work but measure poorly, if the plugs have tarnished (aka corroded) the meter may not be able to get a good connection but the high current of the amps output would not even notice a thin layer of oxide.

If your speakers are indeed 8 ohms that suggests more wrong with the cabs wiring, good thing you are redoing it. Likely just those spade connectors or those splices.

Not sure how you are measuring but go tip to tip and sleeve to sleeve, do not short one side and put the meter on the other, just adding two more points of possible failure to throw off the reading.

I did the rewire work. The meter read a little over 8 so all should be good. I wired it up like this diagram.



Pics.

20181207_170631 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

20181207_170649 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

now im curious to hear how this sounds

Ok I can probably do that today.

HNB wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 08, 2018 8:58 am

Ok I can probably do that today.

if you still have the orange clone head, that would be awesometrousers

When you were touching the socket with a probe, you were probably touching a part that has oxidation. Better to check it with a 1/4 jack plug, as that will connect to what are, via friction, the clean bits.

Looking forward to seeing the head!

s_mcsleazy wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:10 am

HNB wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 08, 2018 8:58 am

Ok I can probably do that today.

if you still have the orange clone head, that would be awesometrousers

I do. The FAC knob is seriously a thing everyone needs. It changed the amps sound do much. You can make it brighter or more bassy depending on what you want. It also impacts how the distortion (gain) sounds. Crunchy overdrive or sludgy distortion depending on the settings and you still have bass and treble adjustments. The EQ on it is very flexible.

I also can't wait for the head to be done. I have a "clone" but I haven't ever played an actual OD120 so I don't know how similar it really is.

Here is my cell phone demo. I clicked through the FAC knob to show what it does. It is really cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9XTkag33yk

sounding good man

Thanks!

One thing to keep in mind if you later add a second Orange cab is that they will come from the factory wired to 16 ohms. Those output transformers on the '90s reissues would be the main point of failure, but mainly with the 80 watters as many had the impedance switch mislabeled. The 120 should be good to go. But I think you are right on point being very cautious about it. I use really high quality, super heavy speaker cables for mine (external cables... the internal wiring on my cabs are all stock). Those '90s ones are still really good amps and sound great. I have a couple old Oranges and a Matamp and have been using them for a long time now. Once you get used to the tone and the Baxendall tone stacks, it's hard to go back to anything else! The amps are VERY hard on output tubes also. That is the place to invest a little extra whenever you need to IMHO. I generally run a '76 Overdrive 120 in tandem with a '90s Green Matamp 120 through 3 Orange 4x12s and one 2x12 The amount of air being moved makes a guitar come to life. The feedback interactivity between the guitar and amp allows the sustain and note bloom to happen in a way that I've never experienced with anything else.