Power distribution among multiple speakers/woofers

[Krown 10+ year member]

Alright- lately I've been hearing two different theories on how power is divided up among more than one speaker. So my question is, which method is true? Let's take a 1000watt amp and say, 3 woofers.

Theory #1) The power is divided among the woofers evenly. This being said, each woofer would be seeing approx. 333watts (1000/3) and that's the end of it.

Theory #2) The power is not divided among the woofers at all. Once the 1000watts are "released" from the amplifier and into the speaker wire, all the woofers hooked up on that same wire are able to recieve the full 1000watts.

Obviously there is a drastic difference between the two theories, and I'd just like someone to clear this up for me. Thanks.

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[talon2nr7588 10+ year member]

theory #1 most definately

 

[dipitydoo 10+ year member]

Theory one is, provided each sub has same impedance and they are all wired the same way. In this case, if the net impedance is let's say 1.33 ohm and the amp puts out 1000 watts at that load, each sub gets 1/3 of the 1000w total power.

 

[AK SloPok 10+ year member]

I agree with dipitydoo, theory one. If as stated one of the subs is faulty or has higher "demands" it would get the lions share of the output.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

Theory one is, provided each sub has same impedance and they are all wired the same way. In this case, if the net impedance is let's say 1.33 ohm and the amp puts out 1000 watts at that load, each sub gets 1/3 of the 1000w total power.

Yep - theory one but the above boldfaced and color-changed qualification is key. If the drivers in question are of differing resistance values the power received by each will accordingly differ.

Whoever/Wherever that second nonsensical theory came from needs to be sterilized immediately so that they cannot reinfest the gene pool.

An amp creates X amount of wattage at Y level of resistance.

Whether you use a single driver or 1,000 separate drivers to achieve that same resistance level the output remains static.

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

Theory 1 is correct.

Theory 2 would be plausible if each sub is crossed at and segregated from different frequency ranges (example: sub 1 up to 30 hz, sub 2 30-50 hz, and sub 3 50-80 hz) with a passive crossover wired between the amp and the subs, much like a component speaker set.