Parallel wiring for 2 ohm load, with Components.

[nrgy 10+ year member]

Ok, I just have one more question about setting up my system with the new amp I bought. Just to run through one more time, here is what I have. A pair of 4" mids and 1" tweeters in the dash, 5.25" woofers in the doors, all powered by a JBL 40w 4 channel amplifier.

Now I'm wondering if I can wire the 5.25" woofers in parallel for a 2 ohm load, which the JBL would then put out 80w. So I'm thinking of setting up my system one of 3 ways:

1) Keep it the way it is, 4" mids and 1" tweeters using the 2 front channels, and the 5.25" woofers using the 2 rear channels for a rated 40w to each channel.

2) Have the 4" mids and 1" tweeters wired normally using the 2 front channels, getting 40w to each channel, and wiring the 5.25" woofers in parallel using one of the rear channels for a 2 ohm load, 80w.

3) Wiring the 4" mids and 1" tweeters in parallel using one front channel and wiring the 5.25" in parallel using one rear channel.

I don't care if I lose the fade and balance option on the radio since I never use these anyways. Out of these options which would you recommend? I'm thinking option 2 might be the best, since I could at least keep the dash speakers in stereo. Am I way off base with my ideas? Thanks.

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[Trixter 10+ year member]

I would keep them each with their own channel. If you have 40w X 2 how is that so different than 80w X 1? You'll get the same power. The only difference is the controlling of the balance and fade.

 

[Gauntlet 5,000+ posts]

What Trixter said. Plus, I would imagine that your 5.25's are 4 ohms, and wiring them down to 2 ohms would create some problems. Id stick with option 1.

 

[jjoven1225 10+ year member]

im kinda confused... sounds to me like you have 3 way components, if it is then why dont u use the crossover and run it in the amp? if it is not, and you just bought them all seperate, i hope you have a seperate equalizer/crossover, oh yea and if even you have an equalier you're gonna need another amp... but anyways if i think what you have is all seperate speakers, read below..

most speakers are not 2 ohm stable.. even if you bring down the ohmage, the amp wont allow it (i think the amp reads the ohm of speaker, not sure)... but anyways, its better if you do it as "option 1" wire everything as normal...

^r u trying to say you're gona connect the tweeter and mids of the head unit and the 5 1/4 to an amp????

 

[nrgy 10+ year member]

Ok, I'm clear on parallel wiring now...thanks. For some reason I was thinking that by parallel wiring two speakers together I would be getting double the wattage, in this case 80w to each speaker, but I now realize although it is 80w to one channel, since there are 2 speakers it would obviously split to 40w to each speaker. I don't know why that was so hard for me to figure out //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/banghead.gif.8606515f668c74f6de0281deb475b6fd.gif

But yes, they are 3 way components, however they are only the factory premium speakers, and didn't come with a crossover. Instead it had some special factory amp (which sucked) that somehow seperated the frequencys. But right now I'm just using the crossovers built into the amp, and it seems to work really well for now. I have all speakers hooked up to the amp.

But anyways, I'm clear as to what I need to do now, so thanks.