Amps, Ohms,Speakers???

[Trane]

If you take a 1 channel amp(2 ohm stable) and run 2 (4ohm)speakers off it in parallel, What kind of ohm load does that put on the amp and will it hurt a 4ohm speaker?
Question 2
if you take a 2 channel amp(2ohm stable) and bridge it to power 1 (4ohm) speaker will this hurt the speaker?

I already have a pair of infinity kappa componets fed off a 2 channel/ 50 watts per channel amp, and a 10" kicker solo fed off a single channel 100 watt amp, I think if I switch the amps up I can get more power, but all these speakers were expensive so I don't want to destroy them. Thanks for any help.

Trane

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93 navajo fairly modified

[This message has been edited by Trane (edited 06-20-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Trane (edited 06-20-1999).]

 

[JTang]

1. Two 4 ohm speakers wired in parallel will create a 2-ohm load, so the 1-channel 2-ohm stable amp should work. It will not hurt the speaker, unless you unkowingly feed it too much power. Dual Voice Coil speakers can be made 8 ohm or 2 ohm depending how they're wired.

2. A 2-channel amp that is normally rated at 4 ohms per channel can only be hooked up to a 4 ohm speaker if it is able to be bridged and is 2-ohm stable. If the amp is not 2-ohm stable, then you must get an 8-ohm speaker, and then each channel of the amp will see 4 ohms.


In response to question 2, and your worrying about the damaging of speakers, it will really depend on what kind of amp you have. Generally, most amps that are able to be bridged to 4 ohms will have double the amount of the from each channel, since each channel is outputting 2 ohms worth of power. (Example: amp 2x50 watts RMS at 4 ohms. At 4 ohms bridged, each channel will really be at 2 ohms, and thus put out 100 watts per channel. Bridged, this will give you 200 watts RMS total.) However, not all amps are like this. Some brands, even when in 2 ohms or bridged, will give less than this. On the other hand, brands that underrate their amp power at 4 ohms, like MTX and stuff that don't cap their 2 ohm power, means that when they are bridged or at 2 ohm, you're really getting a lot more power than you asked for, since you were already getting more power than you thought even at 4 ohms standard.

You'll need to know how your amp is working. A good general rule is to get your amp RMS power to about 90 percent of the speaker's continous handling. Some speakers can take more, probably like yours since they are great, but just to be safe...

As for your mids and stuff, more speakers are damaged and bad sounding from underpowering them, than from overpowering. Well, that's what I think. Your speakers are pretty sweet, so I don't think you'll have to worry too much, unless you're getting some monster amp.

[This message has been edited by JTang (edited 06-25-1999).]