XBlazer01
Posts: 2659
Joined: 1/14/2006
From: Hampstead Maryland
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There is a very nice post in ROE’s audio 911 section, about this, but it dose not go in depth about how these configurations will help/effect your system.
I’m going to make this as simple as possible for us newbes…I’m not going to try and explain to you all the math and science behind ohms, I’m just going to try and show what they have to do with your system and how they will effect it.
First off, you don’t need to understand everything about Ohms law, to be able to use it, but you need to get the ohms right in order to get the best, and safest output from your amp/s and sub/s (ohms applies to all speakers, lows, mids, highs…)
There are a few things you need to know to use it right.
The first thing you need to know is the difference between a Parallel Circuit, and a Series Circuit. You probably already know the difference between the two, but just forgot witch one is which. So here is a little reminder.
Parallel is running all of your + connections together, and all you - connections together. (setting up your subs in a parallel circuit will lower you ohms load, but we will get to that latter)
Series is running + to - to + to - to + to -… (setting up your subs in Series will raise your ohms load, we will get to that to)
Now you need to know the Ohms ratings on your sub/s and amp/s…
A sub should only have one ohms rating, (1,2,4,6,8,10...) the most common ohms rating for a sub is 2 or 4... Wile an amp can have more than one ohms rating. It is very important to know what your lowest ohms rating is on your amp. For example, If your amp’s lowest ratting is 4 ohms, and your sub configuration is lower than 4 ohms, (worst case scenario) you can blow your amp, (best case scenario) or your amp will cute out.
Calculating ohms is easy, it just depends on if your running a your subs in, Series, Parallel, or both.
Series: Raising the ohms load
Lets say you have two SVC (single voice coil) 4 ohm subs. If you run them in a series circuit, you will raise the ohms load on the amp to 8. All you do in a Series Circuit is add the ohms of the subs together… that’s it.
You can run as many speakers in a series circuit as you want without hurting your amp.
There are two main up sides to this, and one main down side.
1: If you have an amp with a minimum ohms rating of say, 4, but you have a sub with an ohms rating of say, 2, all you would have to do is add another 2 ohms sub in series. This will bring the ohms load on the amp up to 4, and wont damage your amp. (2+2=4)…
to
the main down side to this is that your subs have to share the amp’s power… Say your amp puts out , 400 rms, each sub would receive 200rms. So if you had a pair of subs that where rated at say, 400 rms, you would be under powering them, that’s not bad for the subs, but you will sometimes find yourself cranking the volume to get your subs moving.
2: (has nothing to do with ohms) if you have a Powerful amp, say 1000 watts rms, and a bunch of lower rated speakers, say 200 watts rms, then you would want to run about 5 speakers in series… 200 x 5 = 1000
Parallel: Lowering the ohms load
Now if you take those same 2Ohm subs and wire them in Parallel, you will lower the Ohms load on the amp to 1 ohms. For the math, all you do is take the ohms of one sub (2) and divide it by the number of subs (2) 2/2=2... that’s it. (the math only works if the subs have the same ohms rating as each other.)
The up side to this is that each sub is getting a dramatic increase of power from the amp. So say you have that same 400 rms amp, running those same 400 rms subs, both subs would be getting 400 watts. Basically you would be getting 800 watts worth of output. (not that you would find many 400 watt amps that would be able to handle that.)
However if that amp could handle 1 ohm, It would most likely be rated at or around 800watt
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Get The Ohms Right! - 
RE: Get The Ohms Right! - 
