Running head unit on 1 ohm speakers?

[kozzy7778]

Hello,

Without going into a super long story about what happened, I ran my Alpine CDE-164BT head unit while it was hooked up to the stock Bose speakers in my 2002 Nissan Maxima. I found out after having them hooked up for about a month and listening to music super loud that they are 1ohm speakers and could potentially damage the head unit. The shop that installed it MAY have installed it correctly but a lot of signs point to them bypassing the factory amp and just hooking up the 1ohm speakers directly to the head unit. Once I found that out I stopped listening to music altogether or listened to it very quietly.

That being said, all I want to know is this:

I could care less if I damaged the internal amp of the head unit, all I care about is if there is ANY potential that I damaged something within the head unit that would effect sound quality once I hook it up to an external 4-way amp. Is the ONLY thing that could have potentially been damaged the internal amp? Or is there a chance running them as loud and for as long as I did for that month may have damaged some other part of the head unit, internal or even external like the outputs?

Is there such thing as a head unit it being "slightly damaged" or is it one of those "it's either working correctly or it's not turning on, there's no in between" types of things?

I really appreciate your help, it will bring me peace of mind to know whether or not I should just replace it or if I should be good to go!

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[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

1 ohm speakers? For a stock system? That doesn't sound right. Do you know that for sure or just going by what they told ya?

If the Alpine still works and functions properly, I'd say keep using it. The HU only puts out xx number of watts into 4 ohms btw.

 

[kozzy7778]

1 ohm speakers? For a stock system? That doesn't sound right. Do you know that for sure or just going by what they told ya?
If the Alpine still works and functions properly, I'd say keep using it. The HU only puts out xx number of watts into 4 ohms btw.

I'm confident that the stock speakers are 1 ohm. It's a Bose system that has its own external amplifier and 8" subwoofer, it just comes stock in some '02 Maximas. I know that 1 ohm speakers coming stock are not typical but in this case Bose opted to use 1 ohm speakers.

That being said, running 1 ohm speakers on a head unit designed to put out wattage at 4 ohms is a recipe for overheating the head unit big time. I'm just hoping someone here can speak to the potential damage I am looking at, namely whether or not ANYTHING about the head unit besides the internal amp in the head unit could have been damaged. This includes outputs, internal components, etc. Anything other than the internal amp.

 

[pickup1 5,000+ posts]

Probably just burn up the internal amp.

 

[BSchrowang]

Ive tried running a 4 ohm sub on an 8 ohm amp and it burned it up in a matter of seconds.

 

[kozzy7778]

Ive tried running a 4 ohm sub on an 8 ohm amp and it burned it up in a matter of seconds.

Hmm, so it sounds like you think that running 1 ohm speakers off of a 4 ohm head unit wouldn't have lasted anywhere close to a month if they were wired incorrectly?

 

[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

1 ohm speakers? For a stock system? That doesn't sound right. Do you know that for sure or just going by what they told ya?
If the Alpine still works and functions properly, I'd say keep using it. The HU only puts out xx number of watts into 4 ohms btw.

Yes his factory speakers are 1 ohm.