wiring/ohm/amp question

[awinter 10+ year member]

i am currently looking at amps. i have a dual 2 ohm sub. is it better to use parallel wiring and have it have a 1 ohm impedance or wire it in series and have a 4ohm impedance. it seems that the amps that are 1 ohm stable put out alot more watts at 1 ohm than at 4. is there any real difference? will there be less watts going to the sub if i use series wiring? sorry for so many questions i just want to make sure i get an amp that will power my sub correctly

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[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

It's just for flexibility of wiring. You can look for amps that put out the power you need into either a 1ohm or 4ohm load......so, as you can see, since you have two options for impedence, it really opens up your options for which amp to get because you can either find an amp that does XXX watts into 4ohm, or an amp that does XXX watts into 1ohm. (XXX = however much power you need)

 

[JL_W6_v1 10+ year member]

parallel or series = no difference in performance //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

General rules.. (there are always exceptions):

If an amp is 1 ohm stable it will usually be rated higher power at 1 ohm than at 4 ohms. In theory it could be as much as 4 times more.

Amps that create high power (like 500+ watts) at 4 ohms are usually NOT stable at 1 ohm, and are usually more expensive than high power 1 ohm amps.

There is no difference in sound. Choose an amp on power, price, size, features, whatever, and buy sub(s) to match.