More speakers than inputs...?

[Przybysz]

I have like 3 or 4 extra speakers (not tweeters) that I'm going to install into my truck. My truck already has 4 nice pioneers in it so how do i wire more speakers?

 

[aaronajb1981]

be aware that the radio has a greater chance to cut out on you due to the speaker impedence is too low. otherwise its just positve to positive and neg to neg. If you use a 4 channel amp this will work.

 

[Przybysz]

I'm not going to be too happy if my new $276 stereo cuts out.

:/

 

[Anime]

The best way is to add a 4-channel amp. Use the speaker wires from the head unit to power the 4 speakers with the lowest RMS power needs, and use the 4 channels from the amp to power the other 4.

If the amp is 2 ohm stable, you can wire the speakers in pairs and put one pair per channel. You can't do this with the receiver amp since they are usually only 4 ohm stable.

 

[Przybysz]

2 ohm amps are really expensive. Do you know anywhere I could get them for a bit cheaper?

I think www.onlinecarstereo.com has some prices that are good, but definately not on amps

 

[toypaseo]

You could wire them in series...

 

[Anime]

2 ohm amps are pretty much a standard, I'd be wary of running amps that are barely 4 ohm stable and can't handle at least a 2 ohm load. There are plenty of inexpensive brand name (Pioneer, Kenwood, JBL, MTX, etc.) amps that are in the $50-100 range and will easily handle a 2 ohm load.

If you just want to grab a cheap 4 ohm amp, use one amp to power 4 speakers and use the head unit to power the other 4.


Wiring 4 ohm speakers in series will produce an 8 ohm load, effectively reducing the power from the amp by half, and reducing even more with additional speakers. Most car audio amps aren't rated at such loads, and will often put out quite a bit less than half the rated 4 ohm power.

 

[Przybysz]

I just got a Alpine CDA-9886 and it says it can handle (from what i can recall) 18x4 rms for speakers. I am going to buy the power plug for that and it bumps up the rms to 50x4.

All in all, I'm really happy with this deck and cant wait to get it. But yeah, I think i might buy a cheap amp or borrow something. Ya know?

 

[toypaseo]

18x4 is the wattage output, not what it can handle.

What is this Power Plug?