1 ohm or 4 ohms?

[maljr1980 10+ year member]

I'm installing 4 12inch L7 subwoofers in a 6 cube sealed box with 2 alpine PDX amplifiers. My subs are dual 4 ohm. My amps have a regulated power supply between 2 and 4 ohms. I can wire each set of subs to 4 ohms or 1 ohm. If I wire them to 4 box rise will leave them starving for power. I can wire them to 1 ohm and after box rise I should be fine. I don't want to damage my amps. I'm Leary on the box rise issue as the owner of a local shop who specializes in high end stuff like arc audio rainbow, focal, etc, and has an electrical engineering degree from Purdue and is an iasca judge has told me there's no such thing as box rise. Any input would be appreciated

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[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

box rise is def. a real thing lol. wire each sub in series up to 8 ohms, then wire it all in parallel to get a load of 2ohms

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

dual 4ohm subs can only be wired to 2 or 8 ohm unless u are wiring them together the it would be 1 or 4 ohm. but i would wire them to 4 because smoking that amp would be costly.

my advice sell that amp and grab something 1 ohm stable

 

[maljr1980 10+ year member]

don't think u caught I have 2 amps, 2 subs per amp, so I can take two subs and wire each one to 8 then wire them down to 4, or take 2 subs wire each one to 2 ohms then wire the pair down to 1 ohm.

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

don't think u caught I have 2 amps, 2 subs per amp, so I can take two subs and wire each one to 8 then wire them down to 4, or take 2 subs wire each one to 2 ohms then wire the pair down to 1 ohm.

oh, yea I missed that part lulz. how much power do you want to run to all of em?

 

[maljr1980 10+ year member]

So my question is should I wire each pair of subs to a 1 ohm load and hope box rise helps me out, or should I put 4 ohm loads on my amps and loose power as box rise takes me above 4 ohms? And for some reason every shop I go to no one believes this box rise concept

 

[maljr1980 10+ year member]

The subs handle 750 rms in .88 cubes, 600 rms in 2 cubes. Subs are gonna sit in 1.5 cubes per so they should handle about 675 rms, amps birth sheet at 1321 and 1340 rms 2/4 ohms, so that's giving me 665/670 per sub, which is **** perfect, also not sure if I should polyfill the box, I want to give the subs all the power I can without blowing them

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

So my question is should I wire each pair of subs to a 1 ohm load and hope box rise helps me out, or should I put 4 ohm loads on my amps and loose power as box rise takes me above 4 ohms? And for some reason every shop I go to no one believes this box rise concept

if you run it 1 ohm you need to make sure youre at least sending the amps some good, high voltage power. if you have the cash, run it at 4 ohms for now and sell the amps and get something more suited for the job. not sure how much L7's like but the audiopipe 3k puts out 3000 @ 2

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

yea i missed that too lol. if you are just useing it for daily wire them to 4. if it is for comp try the amps at 1 if they get real hot or go to protect then you know not to run them that way.

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

the amps put the same power at 4 and 2 ohm? so then wire them to 4 ohm and call it a day running them at 1 ohm will just kill the amp.

 

[maljr1980 10+ year member]

Lol I'm not changing amps I have these 2 and a PDX f4 for my type r components and coaxials, these amps are awesome, they are small, crank out tons of watts and only run off a 4 gauge power suply, they have a damping greater than 1000, thd+n less than .05 @ rated power and the less than .005 @ 1 watt lol. I have a optima blue top under the hood with a big 3 in 1/0 and 1/0 run to a kinetic in the back, would like ho alt. In the future

 

[maljr1980 10+ year member]

Yeah but what about box rise? That's why I'm asking if I should wire them to 1 ohm and gamble on the amp seeing 2-3 ohms after box rise as opposed to wiring them at 4 and the amp seeing 5 or 6 ohms after box rise

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

depend liek i said on music it wont matter but on tones it will

 

[( . )( . ) 10+ year member]

The subs handle 750 rms in .88 cubes, 600 rms in 2 cubes. Subs are gonna sit in 1.5 cubes per so they should handle about 675 rms, amps birth sheet at 1321 and 1340 rms 2/4 ohms, so that's giving me 665/670 per sub, which is **** perfect, also not sure if I should polyfill the box, I want to give the subs all the power I can without blowing them

If there's a little more power being produced at 4-ohms (1340) than at 2 (1321), a little box rise seems like it could actual help the cause. (Doubtful, but just sayin) Any loss is probably negligible. It's just opinion, but (box rise or not) I'd wire up to 4-ohm loads and call it a day. You'll have the same, or nearly the same amount of juice on tap, those amps will run safe and cool all day, and there will be much less stress on you electrical system altogether.

Whichever way you go, good luck with it. Those amps sound real nice.

 

[maljr1980 10+ year member]

No that's what each amp puts out, at 2 or 4 ohms, it doesn't matter what load