GM stock speaker impedance?

[toxicmegacolon 10+ year member]

Your analog ohmmeter needs to have a X1 scale and be "zeroed" by shorting the leads and adjusting the zeroing knob (assuming it's an old VOM style). DC resistance of a speaker coil reads about 20% lower than the actual impedance but it's close enough for a 2 ohm v.s. 4 ohm check. If you use a digital meter be sure to short the leads first to get the zero reading. Subtract that from your measurement.

Thanks for the advice. I didn't even notice that mine only has the x1000 scale. Now I feel kind of stupid //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Kingstroker 10+ year member]

You could hook them up to a ten billion watt amp if you wanted to. You're not going to blow your speakers unless you're either deaf, stupid, or enjoy listening to horribly distorted music.

I guess I'm one of the many deaf, stupid and enjoy listening to horribly distorted music people who have blown speakers. I've seen both incredible cheap built factory speakers and some not so much, we have no idea which he has. It was only my opinion. If you would, let me rephrase it. I would rather wait and find some somewhat better speakers before I spent time and effort hooking a billion what amp to 10 watt speakers. Again, just my opinion.

 

[akheathen Premium Member]

you don't have head unit power? even an aftermarket head unit can blow them if they are playing much bass. they should be either 4, or 2ohms. i think the 2", if you have them might be 6. 2ohm speakers are what they use on the bose setups, but i don't think they use them on anything else, as far as mids go. factory subs are usually 2ohms. make sure you have a good battery in that old school meter

 

[Kingstroker 10+ year member]

good post Heath. My wife's G35 Bose system is probably similar, if I did anything with it I would start from scratch, lots of HU problems. Mr Colon, good luck with your system. Just looked up your car and looks like head unit replacement would be a nightmare. If I wanted better sound I would do amp and/or speakers also.

 

[whitedragon551 5,000+ posts]

I don't think you can just measure speaker impedance with a multimeter -- it'll just read zero ohms. Maybe there's some way to do it that I don't know about?

It does work. Thats what a multimeter is for.

 

[toxicmegacolon 10+ year member]

It does work. Thats what a multimeter is for.

Yeah you're right. I was operating under misinformation that someone had given me that made sense at the time.

 

[toxicmegacolon 10+ year member]

It does work. Thats what a multimeter is for.

Yeah you're right. I was operating under misinformation that someone had given me that made sense at the time.

 

[Iosias 10+ year member]

I don't think you can just measure speaker impedance with a multimeter -- it'll just read zero ohms. Maybe there's some way to do it that I don't know about?

facepalm#

 

[toxicmegacolon 10+ year member]

My apologies, I was wrong. Stock speakers are amazing, don't worry about blowing them with an amp, they are made to handle lots of watts.

Well I finally got time to run my power wire and take my dash apart and it turns out that you're mostly right. It was a little better in terms of sound quality at high volume with the amp running the stock speakers, but not enough that I'm going to leave it that way. In my vehicles of yore it was always the stock head unit that was the limiting factor rather than the speakers so adding some clean power always made a big difference. In this vehicle it seems the speakers and head unit are pretty much equal in capability (equally crappy) so the amp didn't make much difference. So either factory head-units have gotten better or factory speakers have gotten crappier, or a combination of both.

 

[toxicmegacolon 10+ year member]

facepalm#

Yeah, Yeah. Someone told me that you can't use just DC to measure true speaker impedance since it's a dynamic system. This is partially true, but yes I realize now that I was misinformed and that you can get a good idea with a multimeter.

 

[toxicmegacolon 10+ year member]

facepalm#

Yeah, Yeah. Someone told me that you can't use just DC to measure true speaker impedance since it's a dynamic system. This is partially true, but yes I realize now that I was misinformed and that you can get a good idea with a multimeter.

 

[Kingstroker 10+ year member]

Well I finally got time to run my power wire and take my dash apart and it turns out that you're mostly right. It was a little better in terms of sound quality at high volume with the amp running the stock speakers, but not enough that I'm going to leave it that way. In my vehicles of yore it was always the stock head unit that was the limiting factor rather than the speakers so adding some clean power always made a big difference. In this vehicle it seems the speakers and head unit are pretty much equal in capability (equally crappy) so the amp didn't make much difference. So either factory head-units have gotten better or factory speakers have gotten crappier, or a combination of both.

I think they make them extra crappy to sell you the "premium" sound system that is just a little crappy. Like I mentioned before, my wife's G35's Bose system truly *****, subwoofer and the other 6 speakers. Seems that the sub can't be adjusted just bass for the whole system. My "dual cone" factory speakers I had in my F250 blew the Bose away.