4ohms vs. 2ohms

[Kooch07 10+ year member]

What are the differences?? can one be louder than the other or one handle more watts or what??? I have a memphis 1000d amp on 2 kicker comp vr 10" subs that are 4ohm and I was wondering how I should wire them to get the loudest and should I exchange them and get the same speakers but 2ohms???

thanx

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[supa_c 5,000+ posts]

2 subs

1 DVC 2 ohm

1 DVC 4 ohm

They will sound the same and handel the same amount of power.

The VC configuration is mainly for your amp.

If you have an amp that can do rated power @ 4 ohms then you get 2 subs that are 4 ohms final load

Vice Versa for 2 ohms

Also,

are your subs DVC or SVC ?

 

[Kooch07 10+ year member]

they are dual voice coil 4ohms, but it says my amp puts out 2 x 300watts at 4 ohms and 2 x 600 watts at 2 ohms.... so if i change out my speakers and drop in some dual voice coil 2ohm ones shouldnt i be able to get 600watts a piece out of them?? also how should i waire them?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

they are dual voice coil 4ohms, but it says my amp puts out 2 x 300watts at 4 ohms and 2 x 600 watts at 2 ohms.... so if i change out my speakers and drop in some dual voice coil 2ohm ones shouldnt i be able to get 600watts a piece out of them?? also how should i waire them?

No, you'll only send 300w to each one. With 2ohm/coil dual voice coil subs, your wiring options (per sub) are 1ohm and 4ohm. To get 600w to each sub, you'd need to be able to wire each sub to 2ohm (which you can't do with a 2ohm/coil DVC sub).

 

[GRAND V 10+ year member]

Sorry for jumping in, but I have a question. I have single voice coil subs. The Infinity Kappa Perfects and my amp is 600 watts at 2ohm. Can I hook it up to get 600 to each speaker.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Sorry for jumping in, but I have a question. I have single voice coil subs. The Infinity Kappa Perfects and my amp is 600 watts at 2ohm. Can I hook it up to get 600 to each speaker.

Depends......what are the impedences of the sub's coils, and is the amp a mono amp??

 

[g30ffr3y 10+ year member]

i have that amp... you can wire either 1ohm @ 1100 or 4 ohm @ 300

you would want to get dual 4ohm voice coil config if you are going for

2 subs...

if you wire the subs together for the 1 ohm load each sub would

theoretically get 550 or so... im sure its much more complicated

than that... but someone else could explain the details... im very

much a noob...

but i have 2 JL DVC 4ohm wired to the amp and it sounds great at 1 ohm...

 

[swimfreak26 10+ year member]

The basic question of this thread is: What is an Ohm?

An ohm is a unit of resistence, in car audio it measures (most commonly) the resistence of a voice coil.

So what does this mean?

This basically is a measure of how hard the amp has to work (at a very basic level) to produce power. For example, if you're using a 4ohm driver, your amp will work twice as hard to produce the same power as if you were using a 2ohm sub. Now, since amps only do one amount of work...they differ in how much power they are able to produce at each impedence (ohm load) which is why an amp is rated higher at a lower impedence.

So how do I get different ohm loads?

This requires physics, and the wiring of the different poles of the coils together in different arrangements. These different arangements allow the amp to "see" a different load, and it views all (all in one channel) of the coils (resistors) as one big one.

Equations for wiring resistors together:

In series (positive to negative): R1 + R2 = R total

EX: 2 ohm in series with a 2 ohm = 4ohm final load

In parallel (negative to negative): 1/R1 + 1/R2 = 1/R total

EX: 2 ohm in series with a 2 ohm = 1ohm final load

So, in your case you have 2 DVC 4ohm subs:

Each sub can be wired to 2 ohms (in parallel)

Each sub is then connected to a channel and the amp sees a 2 ohm load on that channel, delivering 600watts

I did notice that your amp is a class d amp though, and generally they are mono amps, rather than 2 channel. If that's the case, see what the minimum impedence rating of the amp is and we can help you to wire your subs to get the most out of it. I hope this clears some confusion many noobs have.

 

[Kooch07 10+ year member]

Yea its a class D and 2 channels but it can be bridged easily and i wasnt sure if i should be bridging it or not, but it can get down to 1100W x 1 @ 1 ohm i know that, i just am a noob at this and dont know now how to wire it?? cause the dvc screws me up and i dont know if i should bridge them or not

 

[swimfreak26 10+ year member]

Wire each sub in parallel, so they both act as single 2 ohm subs now. Then wire those in parallel with one another to get a 1 ohm load to the amp. Most mono block amps will wire them in parallel when you bridge I believe, so just wire each sub in parallel and then bridge. I could be wrong on this point (about bridging) so someone check me please.

 

[supa_c 5,000+ posts]

Here:

or, if you want 4 ohms:

 

[Kooch07 10+ year member]

saweeet thats the picture i needed