# wiring components to 2 ohm???



## edeher (May 6, 2010)

seems like a dumb idea since someone would have tried it before and everyone would be doing it but here is goes. can i wire four 4 ohm compoents to 2 ohm to get more out of my amp or would it kill the components? lol....anyone every tried it?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

yes, each set will receive 1/2 of the 2 ohm power


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

really? so basically it will save me buying another amp just by putting them in 2 ohm going to the same amp? something seems too good to be true


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

it won't actually double power regardless of what the marketing department tells you, but it will be close, the amp will pull twice the current and run hotter..... don't bridge it.


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

chad said:


> it won't actually double power regardless of what the marketing department tells you, but it will be close, the amp will pull twice the current and run hotter..... don't bridge it.


cool
good looking out


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## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

I'm not sure if you understand what Chad is saying. If you have a single set of 4 ohm components that's what you have, 4 ohms. If you wire 2 sets of 4 ohm components to one channel you can get a total 2 ohm load. You can't get 2 ohms from a single set of 4 ohm components. Ohms are a measurement of resistance, like inches are a measurement of distance.


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## leepersc (Sep 23, 2009)

gijoe said:


> I'm not sure if you understand what Chad is saying. If you have a single set of 4 ohm components that's what you have, 4 ohms. If you wire 2 sets of 4 ohm components to one channel you can get a total 2 ohm load. You can't get 2 ohms from a single set of 4 ohm components. Ohms are a measurement of resistance, like inches are a measurement of distance.


Well said! It's a confusing task to take a large number of speakers and wire them in a way that you can run numerous speakers off of a single amp channel. Thanks for the simplification!


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## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

Subs are a different situation. Subs come in many different configurations for this exact reason. You have single voice coils, dual voice coils, 2 ohm, 4 ohm... It's not a bad thing to have multiple drivers playing low frequencies, so the different configurations give you more options for wiring your subs. With a component set, or any other higher frequency driver, you can have a lot of issues if you start adding more speakers than necessary. If you wire in an additional component set to the channel to get 2ohms, the power will be split between each set, so essentially each set will only get a little more power than the single set at 4 ohms (depending on the amp) the problems that running multiple component sets will cause will likely far out weight the benefits of a couple extra db's of output.


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

yea i understood. But my amp will only give 175 rms at 2 ohms instead of 110 rms at 4 ohms. so your right. i dunno if its worth it. maybe i should just leave it at 4 ohms


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

chances are that the extra 65 watts really ain't gonna make much of a difference

Driver Sensitivity + 10LOG*power input


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

gijoe said:


> I'm not sure if you understand what Chad is saying. If you have a single set of 4 ohm components that's what you have, 4 ohms. If you wire 2 sets of 4 ohm components to one channel you can get a total 2 ohm load. You can't get 2 ohms from a single set of 4 ohm components. Ohms are a measurement of resistance, like inches are a measurement of distance.





edeher said:


> can i wire* four 4 ohm compoents* to 2 ohm to get more out of my amp or would it kill the components?


That's what I was going off of.


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## kyheng (Jan 31, 2007)

I still like to see people always saying running lower ohms are better......


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

to me lower ohms are better...if your equipment can handle it.... but 2 ohms seems safe to me. i have had subs on 1 ohm and they did fine, also heard of people doing 0.5 ohms... but i do agree 4 ohms is safer.


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## 14642 (May 19, 2008)

It's no accident that amplifiers deliver more power into 2 ohms and most likely, the amp was designed to provide that power at 2 ohms. If the question is:

If I add a second pair of speakers to my amp will it be OK, then the answer is yes. The amount of power that goes to each speaker in that configuration will be less than currently goes to the single pair of speakers because amps don't double power. 

the drawback is that you won't have a convenient way to balance the output of the two sets of speakers. 

If your amp indicates that it'll make more power into a lower impedance, then it's safe to drive the amp into that impedance. However, if it indicates 2 ohms as the minimum impedance, then you shouldn't run it into lower impedance.


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

Andy Wehmeyer said:


> It's no accident that amplifiers deliver more power into 2 ohms and most likely, the amp was designed to provide that power at 2 ohms. If the question is:
> 
> If I add a second pair of speakers to my amp will it be OK, then the answer is yes. The amount of power that goes to each speaker in that configuration will be less than currently goes to the single pair of speakers because amps don't double power.
> 
> ...


got cha


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## MiniVanMan (Jun 28, 2005)

edeher said:


> to me lower ohms are better...


Well, you need to change that way of thinking. Not better, just different. There are definite drawbacks to lower impedance.


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## pat_smith1969 (Feb 17, 2010)

what no one has said thus far is that with MOST amps as you drop the ohm load your distortion goes up. So not only will you be putting less power to two sets of components it will be of a lesser sound quality. With subs this doesn't matter so much as the low freqs aren't as sensative (or we are not as sensative to them). But as you climb the frequencies our ears become more and more able to hear small differences in the quality of sound produced by the system. 

Also as others have aluded to. Having two speakers playing the same frequencies cause a bunch of problems you don't want to deal with, such as alignment, wave cancelation, wave amplification, and others. To say nothing of how it will affect the sound stage.

Pros.
1. Slightly more volume.

Cons.
1. A much poorer sound due to multiple speakers producing the same frequencies.
2. A much poorer sound due to amplifier distortion.
3. Potential Clipping (happens when you push an amp near it's limits).
4. potential over heating.
5. potential wave cancelations and amplifications.

Honeslty you are much better off going out and buying a cheaper brand amp this is much more powerful.


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

Thanks im learning allot. I think i will hold on to this amp and then sell it when i get the other pair and go for a four channel power acoustik. I saw one that had 150x4 rms so i could run the 110 rms alpines and keep the gain down a lil to keep everything running cool


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## blazeplacid (May 19, 2008)

I can almost promise you that you will notice a change by "adding" 60 watts.

I did the same thing a few years ago....no big change


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

blazeplacid said:


> I can almost promise you that you will notice a change by "adding" 60 watts.
> 
> I did the same thing a few years ago....no big change


adding 60 watts where? I have my speakers matched perfect. 110 rms at both

or you talking about the other pair with a new amp?


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## 94VG30DE (Nov 28, 2007)

Do you have your gains turned all the way up or something? If your gains are only halfway up, this all seems like a waste of effort, since you will end up turning your gains down further to compensate for the output.


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## MiniVanMan (Jun 28, 2005)

blazeplacid said:


> I can almost promise you that you will notice a change by "adding" 60 watts.
> 
> I did the same thing a few years ago....no big change


I can almost promise you that adding 60 (from 110) watts by using a speaker with 1/2 the impedance of the one you're replacing will NOT make a difference in output.

Adding another speaker, playing the same bandwidth, in parallel to create the lower impedance will.

In fact, dropping to a 2 ohm speaker, from a 4 ohm speaker to gain only 1/3 more power will actually net a loss in output in general. All with the added benefits of also creating more heat, higher distortion, and diminished amplifier life. In other words, it's stupid.

Running two drivers in parallel, given it's the same passband is not stupid. That's a 4-6 db increase in output. That's worth it.


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## edeher (May 6, 2010)

right thats what i plan to do. another set with a four channel. 

My gains are not all the way up but i set them with my head unit about 3/4 and then put them up right before i hear them clip or distort. I have my high pass filter on my deck and my amp. Not sure what freq. to put the amp high pass on though. i just play with it till it sounds ok.


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