RM20 Combo with External Speaker

imagimotion · Mar 25, 2011

OK. So I'm totally new to this amp, and I don't discount that I'm just being an idiot. That being said, I connected a 4x12 cabinet @ 8 ohms to the external speaker connection, and no sound came out of it. Only the internal speaker was playing anything. I had the switch on Live, but it also had no sound when it was set to Off. Is there a trick to getting the external speaker to work, or do I have an issue with my amp? I read the manual, but it doesn't mention anything special about connecting an external speaker to the amp if it's a combo.

Thanks in advance.

JKD · Mar 25, 2011

I can't remember if the speaker is wired internally on the RM20 or it's actually plugged into the back...I think it's internal and the speaker jack has the disconnect built in.

Are you sure the plug was pushed in all the way?

PhiloBeddoe · Mar 25, 2011

If you flip the switch to "silent" the external speaker should work and the internal speaker should be silent. I don't think there's a way to use both simultaneously.

bduersch · Mar 25, 2011

Does yours have a switch that goes between live & silent?

It's been a long time since I had an RM20 combo, but I recall something about "live" meant the internal speaker would be used and "silent" switched on the external speaker, so in essence only one of two speakers plugged in would ever be active at one time. So "silent" was only silent if there was no external speaker plugged in.

Heck, maybe I'm imagining this, but I do recall being pretty perplexed by my RM20 at the time.

--B

imagimotion · Mar 25, 2011

OK. So I get the "duh" award here. Apparently when you put it in Silent mode it sends the output to the external speaker jack, which is kind of counter intuitive especially when the manual seems to indicate that it is supposed to be just for recording. So I didn't try it initially when I was playing with the amp because I thought Silent meant just that - no sound. That is definitely not the case.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm all set now.

bduersch · Mar 25, 2011

Oh, I don't think it's worthy of a "duh" award because it's an entirely non-intuitive design... I went through a similar drill a few years back of banging my head against the wall with "why doesn't the external speaker work?" before realizing it worked in "silent" mode.

--B