8 and 4 ohm wiring

[cshaw 10+ year member]

maybe this would be a good one for the home audio section, but w/e.

im building some book shelf's for my friends new place with MLI mids (4 ohms) and my old tweets from some mmats comps i use to run (that are 8 ohm) obviously i want to be running at 8 or higher impedance. would it be cool to just use the crossover that came with the comps? running a 4 ohms, wouldn't hurt anything i wouldn't think cause he never really turns it up do to being in an apartment. opinions?

Click to read more...

 

[streetbeater07 10+ year member]

Can't you wire the mids in series, thus giving you 8 ohms?

 

[cshaw 10+ year member]

yes but then it would be mono no?

 

[streetbeater07 10+ year member]

yeah, i guess you're right, series 8 ohm would be mono, which is basically 4 ohm stereo....

 

[streetbeater07 10+ year member]

use the crossovers, per it is ohm dependent, and your amplifier would just see 4 ohm everywhere.

 

[cshaw 10+ year member]

i will test it tonight then. im building a test box just under .5 sealed for now to see how it sounds in the room and how the receiver likes 4 ohms.

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

if your using a passive xover using a speaker not being the same ohmage as teh xover was designed for will change the freq that teh speaker will recieve it's gonna be one of those try it and see who it sounds kinda things

 

[cshaw 10+ year member]

true. im using the mmats x/over and tweeter, i changed the mid to a more beefy MLI (both 4 ohms) so i shouldn't see any x/over points moved out of wack because of a different impedance. i had this same setup in my car for a while and i was happy how it turned out besides the minor deadening at the time haha.

i got the box all cut up, just got to cut circles and put together and all that jazz.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

The only issue will be whether or not the home amp that you're using will like the 4 ohm load that it will be seeing in the midrange.

 

[orangecounty1 10+ year member]

yeah, i guess you're right, series 8 ohm would be mono, which is basically 4 ohm stereo....

um, no its not.

since when is wiring 2 mids in series to the SAME channel (making 8 ohms) considered stereo? reguardless of the impedance, its still hooked to the same channel, thus its Mono.

 

[cshaw 10+ year member]

heres some pics of the test box and my first impressions. i hooked it up to my onkyo receiver and it worked just fine actually. but he has an old sony i believe.

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=351308

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Onkyo receivers don't mind a 4 ohm load. The Sony might be a different story.

 

[cshaw 10+ year member]

the sony did ok! but these mids really dont like being sealed up. cant wait to build the real cabinets! most likely in a wood we can stain to look sweet.

anyway, how important is spacing between mid and tweeter? and spacing between edges of enclosure? how does this effect frequency response and such? just in general, i know its a vague Q. ive read lots on line arrays lately so i was wondering if spacing of drivers had any play here as well.