Why is SQ better at 4 or 8 ohms compared to 1 or less?

[rsgladwin85 10+ year member]

You lost me.
An amp 86% efficient doesn't mean it will supply the same signal quality and strength 86% of the time. It means that the current that the amp is drawing from the electrical system, 86% of it is in form of musical output power, and the remaining 14% is dispersed in heat.

Example: If an amp is drawing 100 amperes of current, 86% of it went to the amplification of the music in watts/power, and the remaining 14 amperes of current went in heat, sense no amp on the market can be 100% efficient.

Unless I miss-understood you????

Nothing electronic is 100% efficient that supplies power. The harder it has to work to provide power, the hotter it will get, therefore lowering its ability to supply a steady stream of power. There are ways to improve efficiency, which in most cases is why some items are higher priced, because they use more capable components. The easiest way is to cool your power source. This is the reason PC power users, have turned to water cooling, and on the extreme end even thermal tanks, and liquid nitrogen.

 

[rc10mike 10+ year member]

Im running an amp at about 2kw @ 4 ohms. Im going to buy an amp rated @ 2kw at 1 ohm and see if I can tell a difference...

 

[rsgladwin85 10+ year member]

Im running an amp at about 2kw @ 4 ohms. Im going to buy an amp rated @ 2kw at 1 ohm and see if I can tell a difference...

Lol, let us know how that goes. I kinda doubt it. Be a bit difficult from just bass notes I'd bet, but you have me curious. Although it'll be a little hard since you can't buy exactly the same amp, just rated 2k at different ohms. Which amp are you using currently, and which do you have in mind?

 

[appleyard 10+ year member]

Its because of efficiency and THD. Lower your impedance meaning lower your efficiency and increase in THD. I never heard of moving cones can charge capacitor? If thats the case than you will have a free moving speaker as nothing to dampened it and what you SQ guys called loose sound.

 

[smgreen20 10+ year member]

Nothing electronic is 100% efficient that supplies power.

Isn't that basically what I just said?

 

[rc10mike 10+ year member]

I have ran 3 different sub amps that all produce max power at 4 ohms. Zapco 9.0xd, US Amps AX-2000, and a JBL BPX 2200.1. Ill think Ill pick up a Sundown or Audioque 2k'er..

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

As far as sub amps go, I'm running a MB Quart DSC1500.1D at 2ohm right now (750RMS) and cannot tell any noticeable difference. If anything I would say the sound is slightly more "hollow" but I'm also running different subs/box so I'm not doing an A/B comparison.

One of the best setups I've ever ran was a set of Sound Stream Pro 12's with a Reference 500 amp. Very clean SQ, not very loud but super clean sound. Best one I've heard in person was JL Audio W6's (I believe), great SQL.

 

[rc10mike 10+ year member]

Some years ago I ran a Rockford Power 1000 (sub channel 1kw @ 1ohm) to my two RF Punch HX2's. Much to my surprise at the time, it just didnt sound anything like the previous amp I had powering them (PPI PCX2200 400x2 @ 2ohm). The subs were in the same box, same car etc...at any volume, it just didnt sound like it used to. I figured they would sound the same, since the subs were getting about the same power, but it didnt. Then one day I rewired my subs to 4 ohms with the RF Power 1000. I immediately noticed the sound to be much more like what I was used to with the PPI, granted I could not push it to high volume without clipping/distorting like crazy, but at moderate levels, it sounded much better. Im not going to try and describe the sound, because putting what is heard into words would not be accurate.

 

[Haunz 10+ year member]

Subjective comparisons mean nothing... preperly setup double blind ABX comparisons, or it didn't happen...

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

RC10Mike, Interesting findings with the 2 amps. I've noticed the same thing myself using different equipment, but just swapping amps and trying to dial them in for best SQ. I used to buy a lot of garage sale amps and push them to see what they could do. I had a little blue Jensen amp that was louder than hell, but it sounded like crap doing it. It ran very hot. I've also had other amps that sounded really clean and clear but didn't get very loud, and some power amps that were both loud and clear. Its amazing how different the sound can be. Even RCA cables can make a difference in sound.

 

[rc10mike 10+ year member]

RC10Mike, Interesting findings with the 2 amps. I've noticed the same thing myself using different equipment, but just swapping amps and trying to dial them in for best SQ. I used to buy a lot of garage sale amps and push them to see what they could do. I had a little blue Jensen amp that was louder than hell, but it sounded like crap doing it. It ran very hot. I've also had other amps that sounded really clean and clear but didn't get very loud, and some power amps that were both loud and clear. Its amazing how different the sound can be. Even RCA cables can make a difference in sound.

Ill admit I never heard RCAs make a difference...

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

I had some no-name regular tin/silver plated RCAs that didn't quite sound right... sounded kinda quiet. I swapped them out with some gold plated radio shack cables I had laying around and it made a big difference. Its just like a guitar cable. The cable makes a huge difference in sound/tone and noise level. I even have some monster cable speaker wires with the spiral technology that's supposed to reduce EMI feedback into the amp. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=monster+xln+speaker+cable&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=7102857783599583296&ei=i_2LTJPyOILmsQPO4sTUBA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CC8Q8wIwAg#

 

[BassAddictJ 5,000+ posts]

i need better rca's //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

those are the only things i went cheap on...

 

[smgreen20 10+ year member]

At some point, you can't get any better. There was an A/B test done on Monster Cable vs Coat hanger for sound comparison, they couldn't tell/hear a difference. You can google it and find it rather quickly.