Understanding Ohms (audio)

[denny2hand]

It depends on what amp you are using and how many speakers you are pushing with that amp. If the amp is 2 ohm stable you can produce more power with 2 2ohm dual voice coil speakers wired in series to each other and then parallel (bridged) to the amp. That would produce a 2 ohm load. If the amp is not 2 ohm stable, then 2 4ohm dual voice coil speakers wired series and then parallel to the amp would produce a safe 4ohm load and will prevent destroying your amp.

As far as sound quality is concerned, I don't think sound quality suffers either way as long as the speaker/amp/head unit is matched up properly. SPL is stronger the lower the ohm load the amp sees due to the increase in power (enclsure design is just as important for SPL/SQL). An amp rated with a max of 700w might be at 2ohms but would realistically only see 350w at a 4ohm load. Most multiple channel amps are not 2ohm stable(bridged). Phoenix has some amps that are stable to as low as .5ohm though.

Check out the Crutchfield website for some good information as well as carstereo.com and caraudio.com.

What amp are you wanting to use?

[Jrew]

i was looking at pairing a clarion pxw1251/52 sub with a clarion dpx1800 amp. However, the 1251 is a dual 2ohm where as the 1252 is a dual 4 ohm. I want to pair it with the amp only if I can run it at 2 ohms but i didn't know if the amp could handle that. here are the links for both:


Sub- http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...roductID=17464

Amp-
http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...roductID=17289

Maybe I am incorrect however. Don't you wire the dual coil sub in series so that it equals 4 ohms? or can you wire it so that it is just 2? im slightly confused on that matter. Thanks for the info so far!!

[denny2hand]

You want a 2ohm load in order for that amp to make 800w. In order to do that you need a dual 4ohm voice coil sub wired in parallel. If you wire it in series, the amp would see 8ohms(4ohm+4ohm). If you went with a dual 2ohm voice coil, and wire it in series the amp would see a 4ohm load giving your sub 450w. If you went with the 2ohm and wired it in parallel the amp would see a 1ohm load and probably fry itself. So yes, you can wire it in series so it would see a 4ohm load but only if you use a 2ohm dvc sub. Get the 4ohm sub and wire it in parallel and get ready to jam! I'm running an Alpine Type R 10 4ohm dvc wired parallel with an Alpine mono amp and it's more bass then I could ever need! I chose Alpine for the sound quality.

[f00g00]

Crutchfield has a pretty good def here
http://www.crutchfield.com/ISEO-rgbt...fers_dual.html

[redmaro]

Go to www.Caraudio.com to the forum section and post their, they are very helpful. Youll get imput real fast.

Why are you going with clarion? Is it cause the subs seems massive? You do know that those subs are 500watts rms right.

[redmaro]

Heres how it goes if your only buying one subwoofer, and assuming you buy a monoblock amplifier.

dual 2 ohms voice coil subwoofer= 1 ohm stable amplifier. wired in parallel



dual 4 ohms voice coil subwoofer= 2 ohm stable amplifier. Wired in parallel