How can I tell if my subs are wired in series or parallel?

[Smoothio]

I am currently trying to check how much of an ohms load my speakers are putting on my amp. I want to know if everything is correct and to further my knowledge of my system. My subs were bought with a previous car that I wrecked but kept the subs and amp and had them reinstalled at a shop into a new car.

I'm not 100 percent sure if my speakers are 4 ohm or 2 ohm but I believe they are 2 ohm. I have 2 kicker comp VR 12's in a ported box.

Like they title says I'm also not sure if they are connected in series or parallel.

The box has 2 positive/negative outlets. For each speaker I assume. One speaker is connected to the other speaker, and that speaker is connected to the amp.

I believe the speakers have dual voice coils but I'm not 100 percent sure and I hardly know what that means for me.

I mainly want to know the load on my amp and speakers and all of that so that I can tune the gain with a multimeter.

I'm wanting to know if my speakers are at 2 ohms 4 ohms or 8 ohms. I've gotten very confused.

Its a mono amp. 11dx1000.1 kicker. The amps specs are 550 watts RMS x 1 at 4 ohms (1,000 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms)

Any help would be really appreciated because like I say I've gotten a bit confused and since my speakers are in a box I can't find a model number or anything. I just know they are compVRs.

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[danielbea122]

What is the model number on the sub? Google that and you'll find your answer to be 100% what the speakers are themselves. Then it's a matter of look at the wiring

Edit: you must take the speakers out or everything else is impossible to answer

I learned all this about a month ago lol yeah it's very confusing at first but not too bad after all.

I went from not knowing much of anything to installing my system with help from everyone around here.

Piece of advice exhaust all resources then ask the question here. Asking questions you can figure out yourself with a little bit of effort will be ignored lol learned that the hard way

What are dual voice coil subwoofers?

Let's learn about DVC subwoofers and how you can adapt them to your own system

www.crutchfield.com

 

[danielbea122]

Sorry forgot to mention but you have to take the speakers out of the box to begin to answer your questions

 

[Smoothio]

I didn't want to mess up any wiring by taking the subs out just to look at the model number. I thought there may be an easier way that I didn't know about. Possibly by checking the resistance on the subs with the multi-meter. When I tried I didn't get the reading I expected and assumed I was doing something wrong.

It's usually a lot quicker to get information from people who have already gone through the experience. People on forums like these who answer common peoples questions always have a wealth of good information. It's usually the best way to at the very least point me in the right direction or correct my errors in thinking.

The answers I was getting in my research on the net and youtube videos was confusing me. A lot of times I miss small important details that you all have easily solved already and you guys help me to find the right answers.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

 

[danielbea122]

I didn't want to mess up any wiring by taking the subs out just to look at the model number. I thought there may be an easier way that I didn't know about. Possibly by checking the resistance on the subs with the multi-meter. When I tried I didn't get the reading I expected and assumed I was doing something wrong.

It's usually a lot quicker to get information from people who have already gone through the experience. People on forums like these who answer common peoples questions always have a wealth of good information. It's usually the best way to at the very least point me in the right direction or correct my errors in thinking.

The answers I was getting in my research on the net and youtube videos was confusing me. A lot of times I miss small important details that you all have easily solved already and you guys help me to find the right answers.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Don't worry about messing anything up, just unscrew em take a quick look then put it back.

I'm sure you can do much more damage to the AMP if you run them the wrong way 2cents

 

[Smoothio]

Okay, I pulled one of the subs out. They have dual voice coils with 4 ohms and they are wired in parallel I believe. I'll have to check some stuff and make sure but I'm pretty sure its parallel. I'll have to re-watch this video and see if I can figure it out.

 

[Smoothio]

Okay, so to me it looks like its wired in series-parallel actually but I still cant tell. It has a wire on each sub that connects to a positive and to a negative terminal on one side of the sub, like a jumper.

The other side has wires that connect to a positive and negative terminal on the sub and then connect to the leads on the box, on the outside of the box there is a wire that connects the speakers together.

It connects both the positive and negative leads from the left speaker to the right speaker and then another wire connects all of the wires from the right speaker to the amp.

I believe its getting a 4 ohm load. It seems strange to me for them to wire it for 8 ohms. The speakers bang its not like they are soft or anything.

 

[danielbea122]

Okay, so to me it looks like its wired in series-parallel actually but I still cant tell. It has a wire on each sub that connects to a positive and to a negative terminal on one side of the sub, like a jumper.

The other side has wires that connect to a positive and negative terminal on the sub and then connect to the leads on the box, on the outside of the box there is a wire that connects the speakers together.

It connects both the positive and negative leads from the left speaker to the right speaker and then another wire connects all of the wires from the right speaker to the amp.

I believe its getting a 4 ohm load. It seems strange to me for them to wire it for 8 ohms. The speakers bang its not like they are soft or anything.

Sounds about right because your amp isn't 1ohm stable so if they wired properly they would have to be seeing a 4ohm load

 

[danielbea122]

I'd buy a buy a 1ohm stable amp then rewire them to 1ohm for more power.

You're safe now though I believe.

 

[Smoothio]

Yeah I might do that since now I'm thinking they are under powered. They are rated at 400w rms but, if I'm right, with 2 subs and the amp giving 550w rms then that would mean the subs are only getting 275w rms correct?

So even though the subs still seem to bang, wouldn't it be hard to push the subs with such low wattage? I keep getting the feeling I can get more out of them. It would effect the quality of the bass it produces right not just how loud it is?

Maybe the gain on my current amp is just set too high to have to push the subs and they still aren't getting enough power, maybe I'm getting distortion in my bass?

I'm really thinking about getting a better amp now. This wont put more load on my alternator will it? At 1 ohm it would just send more power to the subs right? Just wondering because my car is already using alot of power, I have a 125 amp alternator but I also have an amp thats running 100w rms to each of my 4 front speakers so its getting some juice.



Thanks for all your help and time by the way.

 

[Smoothio]

So I was thinking, I already have this "limited edition" pioneer GM-dx874 4 channel amp that powers my front speakers and I like it. I was thinking maybe I could get this pioneer GM-DX971 mono amp that will do 1200w rms @ 1 ohm. So that should give my speakers 600w rms to play with if I were to re-wire them at 1 ohm right? And even though the speakers are rated for 400w rms, I should be able to set my gain so it doesn't blast them right? Then possibly in the future upgrade the subs. I was thinking of getting the kicker compQ's somewhere down the line.

 

[danielbea122]

So I was thinking, I already have this "limited edition" pioneer GM-dx874 4 channel amp that powers my front speakers and I like it. I was thinking maybe I could get this pioneer GM-DX971 mono amp that will do 1200w rms @ 1 ohm. So that should give my speakers 600w rms to play with if I were to re-wire them at 1 ohm right? And even though the speakers are rated for 400w rms, I should be able to set my gain so it doesn't blast them right? Then possibly in the future upgrade the subs. I was thinking of getting the kicker compQ's somewhere down the line.

You can always turn it down but it ***** when you can't turn it up.

1500w rms is the max you can go with stock electrical is what I was told by pretty much everyone but every car is different.

GM-dx874 draws 60 amps
GM-DX971 draws 120 amps got the info from crutchfield site

You said you have 125amp alternator so you might need a second battery(and all the wiring) to be safe if you go that route.

I have about $800 in amp and subs with about $1200 invested to power my setup. Once you go past that 1500w point it gets expensive lol

 

[Smoothio]

Yeah its getting expensive lol. I got the optima red top cost me like $300. I bought a new alternator but didn't do enough research because it doesn't have enough amps (I went from 105 to 125) for $200. Subs, 4 front speakers and sub amp were about $400-$500. Got the DX874 amp to power the front speakers because it wasn't balanced enough it was like $250. Bought better quality kicker ks 6.5 speakers to handle the 100w rms from the amp (I had bought the cheaper kicker ds 6.5 speakers from walmart for $45 bucks and the KS are a lot better for balance) they were like $100. I'm not sure if my wiring will be good if I add a bigger amp. Right now I believe it's 4 AWG. I had to get the wiring installed and all of that **** too because I just dont have time due to work plus the headunit I bought I don't even really want to add it all up.

I'm kind of too far gone now though lol, and I'm addicted to sound. Especially deep bass. So I want to see what I can do.

I'm really not sure what route to take here I'll have to think about it.

I'm not sure if I want to get a huge amp that will do 800w at 4 ohms, get a 1 ohm stable amp and rewire the subs, or just buy a better pair of 2 ohm subwoofers and keep the 1000w kicker amp that I got. Maybe just get the 2 ohm kicker compVRs, sell the 4 ohms pair to someone and wire them the same in the same box, might be easier for me. It's all going to cost lol.

I'll probably go ahead and buy another alternator that does at least 190+ amps since it seems like I need it regardless. Otherwise I need to think more I don't want to make another costly or bad purchase if I can help it.

 

[danielbea122]

Yeah its getting expensive lol. I got the optima red top cost me like $300. I bought a new alternator but didn't do enough research because it doesn't have enough amps (I went from 105 to 125) for $200. Subs, 4 front speakers and sub amp were about $400-$500. Got the DX874 amp to power the front speakers because it wasn't balanced enough it was like $250. Bought better quality kicker ks 6.5 speakers to handle the 100w rms from the amp (I had bought the cheaper kicker ds 6.5 speakers from walmart for $45 bucks and the KS are a lot better for balance) they were like $100. I'm not sure if my wiring will be good if I add a bigger amp. Right now I believe it's 4 AWG. I had to get the wiring installed and all of that **** too because I just dont have time due to work plus the headunit I bought I don't even really want to add it all up.

I'm kind of too far gone now though lol, and I'm addicted to sound. Especially deep bass. So I want to see what I can do.

I'm really not sure what route to take here I'll have to think about it.

I'm not sure if I want to get a huge amp that will do 800w at 4 ohms, get a 1 ohm stable amp and rewire the subs, or just buy a better pair of 2 ohm subwoofers and keep the 1000w kicker amp that I got. Maybe just get the 2 ohm kicker compVRs, sell the 4 ohms pair to someone and wire them the same in the same box, might be easier for me. It's all going to cost lol.

I'll probably go ahead and buy another alternator that does at least 190+ amps since it seems like I need it regardless. Otherwise I need to think more I don't want to make another costly or bad purchase if I can help it.

If money isn't the biggest concern and it sounds like you want a decent amount of power buy the HO alternator now. Like you said you'll need it.

Then you can keep the amp you have for mids/highs and buy like a 3k-5krms amp with serious subs plus a box (not kicker they're overpriced for what you get IMO) be done with it for like $1500 more depending on how much the alternator is

alt+subs+box+amp+1/0 ofc wiring

 

[Smoothio]

I can't find a better h/o alternator for my car. Its a 2000 impala, all the website say the 220amp ones wont fit my car. Probably why the one I got was so expensive. I don't know if you guys mod them to fit or something but I cant find one anywhere. Might be best to do the separate battery + 1 ohm stable amp. I might just go ahead and get a new amp + sub pairing and do some better math here. What I got right now sounds so good but like I say I'm addicted haha. I mean I already got a 1200w 4 channel amp that powers my fronts drawing 60 amps and the 1000w amp as is is probably 100-120 amps.

I don't want to end up destroying my cars electrical system or anything or getting stranded.

Maybe I can get a pairing that sounds better or at least equal but is more efficient on power consumption?

I didn't really pick the sub amp or subs anyway they just came with my previous car that I bought after I hit a deer.