CTS organ speaker question

[mellowgerman]

I picked up an old Conn organ for free a few years back and played around with it for some time until I went off to college. It has more or less just been sitting for most of the last 5 years and has quite a few issues now. When I took off the back panel, I was excited to see the single 12" speaker inside it is an old CTS speaker. I imagine it's in perfect working order and I'm pretty sure my dad has a spare 1x12" enclosure kicking around somewhere. Figured this could make a nice vintage guitar speaker cab.
Now my question is, anyone have any idea as to how many ohms it might be? Or is there an easy way for me to find out? I don't have an Ohm meter anymore

 

[capnjuan]

Hi Mello; more likely than not, the speaker is 8 ohm ... especially if it was the only speaker in the organ; the other common impedances ... 4 and 16 are usually used in combination with more than one. Anyway, if it was the only speaker, it's probably 8 ohms but of course a meter is the best way to tell.

If the speaker is original to the organ, it will have been designed closer to 'hi-fi' standards for full-frequency reproduction. Older Magnavox, Fisher, and other stereo-style speakers don't do especially well in guitar amps.

Do you know what the power output of the original organ amp was? If the speaker was/is original to the organ, that will set the speaker's power handling.

Despite all this negative stuff ... it's still worth a shot!

 

[mellowgerman]

Thanks for the response cap'n!
According to the specs tag (for lack of a better term) located on the back of the organ, it was 80 watts. When you say these speakers sometimes didn't do specifically well in guitar amps, what do you mean exactly? They didn't sound too great? Or is there considerable risk of damaging the amp or the speaker? Sorry about all the questions... I'm just sort of a newby when it comes to this stuff. Still a-learnin'

 

[capnjuan]

If the amp has an 8 ohm OT (is a tube amp, no?) ... then even if the speaker is 4 or 16 ohm, you can't really harm the amp. Same thing if the amp is transistor and designed for an 8 ohm load.

Where you can get sideways is if the amp was designed for 4 ohms but the speaker is 16 ohm impedance ... or ... the amp was designed for 16 ohms, but the speaker is 4 impedance. The 'half or double' rule; the speaker can have half as much ... 50% (or twice as much ... 2X) impedance as the amp was designed for ... but 25% or 4X the impedance ... that's trouble.

If the amp was rated at 80 watts, the speaker shouldn't have any trouble. Full-frequency speakers out of bookshelf or living room stereo systems ... those are the kind that flub out. Btw: are you sure the power output was 80 watts? Back in the day .. maybe still is ... mfrs often put the AC power consumption, expressed in watts, on the chassis nameplate. The booboo would be believing the speaker can handle more power than it's actually rated for.

 

[mellowgerman]

The amp at hand is tube and has a selector for 8, 4, or 2 ohms.

I thought of the consumption factor too since I know my 20watt Peavey studio combo has its 80watt consumption stamped on the back. But considering that the organ is solid-state, the volume it produces is right around what I feel one could expect from an 80watt bass or guitar amp

 

[capnjuan]

Okay; set it at 8 ohms and see what happens. 8)

 

[gilded]

A lot of times speakers that are made to reproduce some of the low notes of an organ are a little stiff in the cone/voice coil formation for electric guitar.

sez gilded, who is also a Hammond Organ owner.......