Wiring Speakers to 2 ohms

[astragsiii]

whats the best method?

[MacLeod]

Wire a pair of 4 ohm voice coils in parallel to a single amp channel.

[neomagus00]

generally, it's a bad idea unless you're doing it with subs...

[hellohello]

would it be ok if you were to run midranges in series, I would assume that the amp would have the gain set higher to compensate, but with that added resistance, would it be less likely to clip?

[astragsiii]

i know the guy whi i got all the stuff off had it all running at 2 ohms

[neomagus00]

well, running mids in parallel decreases the load on the amp, dropping its damping factor, tripling its distortion, and making it run much harder - all bad for sound quality... running mids in series does all that stuff the other way, which is good for the amp (as long as it can still cleanly make the power you need it to make), but there's a phenomenon called back-EMF that makes it a bad idea to wire speakers in parallel (basically, if one moves, the other tries to move to counteract it - so you have the speakers fighting both each other and the amp, and that can't be good)... if i had to choose, i'd do em in series...

[hellohello]

"called back-EMF that makes it a bad idea to wire speakers in parallel"

so, series is good? lol I think I know why people have a hard time understanding me, I write one thing which reminds me of something else, and the logical order goes "POOF"
:D

[astragsiii]

OK OK I'm new to the whole series / parallel so could some one please enlighen me

[hellohello]

Ok, series is basically running both speakers on the same circuit. Look at the Picture i attached, now its only using one channel of the amp. Now wiring this way increases the ohms simply because you are making the signal go through both speakers one after the other. It basically adds the two ratings of the speakers. 4ohm+4ohm=8ohm

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=12266&stc=1
series.bmp

For parallel, its using one channel of the amp as well, but each speaker is using its own "circuit" Wiring this way decreases the ohms because now the signal has two places to go, cutting the resistance in half. Two 4 ohm speakers, in parallel, has a 2 ohm load simply because the signal is "split" between the two.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=12267&stc=1
parallel.bmp

[astragsiii]

So can i do the with my 6x9's then in parrallel

[neomagus00]

"called back-EMF that makes it a bad idea to wire speakers in parallel"

so, series is good? lol I think I know why people have a hard time understanding me, I write one thing which reminds me of something else, and the logical order goes "POOF"
:D
hey, wow, holy poop on a stick, i got this totally backwards! i just reread this, and back-emf is a phenomenon of series-wired speakers, not parallel... crikey!