Wiring 6 component speakers help

[SlickNick 10+ year member]

I'm pretty advanced (compared to most of the guys I run into about car audio) in my knowledge about car audio but there's one thing that I've never known and it's just now mattering. My friend has a pioneer head unit and he's got 4 jl audio speakers (2 component 2 coaxial) but we are doing a custom fg enclosure for his kicker comp 12's and he wants to add another pair of 6 1/2's. He wants to add kicker rs's into the fg enclosure. Even though the rms wattages on the kickers are different from the jl audios, he's not running them through an amp so it doesn't matter right now. Is there any way to run them through the head unit without throwing it off? I know if you tie in to one of the jl audio pairs, it will drop the ohm level to 2 per speaker and I'm not sure if this can be done. how does everyone else always run a crazy number of speakers? Do you have to use an amp for this? Thanks a lot. I need some help fast so that we can buy the speakers quickly and get them in the mail before we finish the fg box. Thanks in advance.

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[Saint211 10+ year member]

Yeah, theres a number of ways to do it. Depends on the setup really, but youd definitely want an amp. Even if you had 2 ohm speakers, which do exist.... yeah you could wire them to a headunit by putting them in series, but theyd be getting like 7-11 rms each off a headunit.....

you cant do it it from the headunit with 6 speakers(of available voicecoil configs anyways). You could do 8 speakers if you had 2 ohm spekers, but theyd barely be seeing any power. Levels under ~3-3.5 ohms will burn out a standard deck. I wouldnt really go under 4 honestly.

You have several options for amplifiers, could do a 2 ch, 4 ch, or 6 ch.

2 channel could be used to power 4 speakers, 2 together for 2 ohms stereo... 2 speakers on each channel.

4 channel could do 4 to 8 speakers. You could do all 6 speakers. Id actually suggest this as one of your better options, you could do the front stage... 1 speaker to its own channel, then wire 2 speakers to 2 ohms off each back channel. Due to being 2 ohms you might even be able to find an amp that would match them all up in power Even if the back speakers end up with a little less power theyd still do a good job as rear fill,while having a strong front stage.

6 ch is obvious... 1 to each channel, but you could also do 3 8 ohm bridges //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Tons of ways to do this my man

 

[SlickNick 10+ year member]

yeah you could wire them to a headunit by putting them in series, but theyd be getting like 7-11 rms each off a headunitE].....

How would you wire single voice coil speakers in a series? Do you mean just splicing into the rears? Besides, I don't think that the resulting 2 ohm load would be supported by the HU. That's why I didn't think it could be done.

you cant do it it from the headunit with 6 speakers(of available voicecoil configs anyways). You could do 8 speakers if you had 2 ohm spekers, but theyd barely be seeing any power.

How could you do 8 speakers (2 ohms each)? How can you wire a single voice coil sub up?

Levels under ~3-3.5 ohms will burn out a standard deck. I wouldnt really go under 4 honestly.

You confused me by some of what you said. In the beginning, you say you CAN wire 6 speakers to head unit then you say you CAN'T.

4 channel could do 4 to 8 speakers. You could do all 6 speakers. Id actually suggest this as one of your better options, you could do the front stage... 1 speaker to its own channel, then wire 2 speakers to 2 ohms off each back channel. Due to being 2 ohms you might even be able to find an amp that would match them all up in power Even if the back speakers end up with a little less power theyd still do a good job as rear fill,while having a strong front stage.

If the back speakers (4) are wired at a 2 ohm load per channel and the fronts are at 4 ohms, the back speakers would be pulling MORE power from the amp not less... The lower the ohm level, the more power it pulls from the amplifier...you would essentially have a stronger BACK stage if you wired it like you just suggested.

6 ch is obvious... 1 to each channel, but you could also do 3 8 ohm bridges //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

How could you take 6 (4ohm 1VC)s speakers and wire them up in pairs to 8 ohms? If I'm not mistaken, this cant be done...unless you could take the positive wire to the positive terminal on speaker A and the negative wire to the negative terminal on speaker B and then run a wire from Negative terminal A to positive terminal B...wouldn't that tear the speakers up...I think I am confusing myself. A lot of what you suggested doesn't make sense with the stuff that I've learned...maybe...I dunno. I guess ill just have to look for a 6 channel amp to make things easier. But from what I gathered from what you said (although contradictory) it is not advisable to splice into the rear speakers that are run through the Head Unit....Anybody else have any better ideas or can clear things up for me?

 

[qkassidyw 10+ year member]

I'll try and summarize what the other poster was saying.

You CAN hook up 6 speakers to a deck BUT if you wired them in parallel it would burn the deck out. If you wired them in series off of the rear you would have 8 ohms on each channel and two speakers off each channel so you would only be getting MAYBE 8 Watts RMS to each speaker.

Using a 4 channel you would hook the fronts up tot he front channels and the other four speakers into the rear channels. This would result in a 2 ohm load on the rears BUT you have two speakers on each channel so they would be splitting the power so the front stage wouldn't be louder because all the speakers would (essentially) be getting the same power.

With the 6-channel you would either wire each pair of speakers in series then bridge them (3 bridged at 8 ohms) or just hook each speaker up to each channel. But, its harder to find a 6 channel amp that evenly distrubtes power to all 6 channels. Normally it is something like 100Wx4 @4 and 250x2 @4 (4 four speakers and two for subs)

 

[SlickNick 10+ year member]

You CAN hook up 6 speakers to a deck BUT if you wired them in parallel it would burn the deck out. If you wired them in series off of the rear you would have 8 ohms on each channel and two speakers off each channel so you would only be getting MAYBE 8 Watts RMS to each speaker.

Ahhh. How do you wire 2 single voice coil speakers together? Do you take the positive wire off the HU to the + terminal on one speaker and the negative wire to the - terminal on the other speaker then run a wire connecting the remaining terminals between the speakers?

Using a 4 channel you would hook the fronts up to the front channels and the other four speakers into the rear channels. This would result in a 2 ohm load on the rears BUT you have two speakers on each channel so they would be splitting the power so the front stage wouldn't be louder because all the speakers would (essentially) be getting the same power.

Does it literally split the power? Someone told me that it really didn't...I dunno

With the 6-channel you would either wire each pair of speakers in series then bridge them (3 bridged at 8 ohms) or just hook each speaker up to each channel. But, its harder to find a 6 channel amp that evenly distrubtes power to all 6 channels. Normally it is something like 100Wx4 @4 and 250x2 @4 (4 four speakers and two for subs)

You're telling me...it took me a while just to find one that didn't beef up two of the channels on wattage lol. Thanks for clearing things up for me. My friend needs to determine if he wants to spend the extra money getting the 2nd amp, another amp wiring kit, and a distribution block, etc. lol. I'll post picks when I'm through.