Speaker wiring and ohm loades
"I recently came across a post on Facebook where someone asked, 'Can you run various Ohm speakers on the same amp, such as a 4 channel?' This is a deeper question than the original poster probably realized."
"The short answer is 'yes,' you can hook up multiple speakers with varying ohm loads to different channels of an amplifier, whether it is a class A/B or Class D, a 2 channel or 4, 5, 6 channel amp. However, many people may not know that you can also hook up multiple speakers with various ohm loads to the same channel or even bridged channels, if the amp design allows for it."
Photo credit Focal Audio
"Some of you reading this may think, 'Of course! I can use a crossover to hook up a mid bass driver and a tweeter.' But did you know that you can do it without the crossover and still have two or more speakers working on the same channel?
"How does this work? Well, let's say you had a speaker with a built-in crossover already, which is pretty normal on coaxial speakers. These speakers are commonly a first option when replacing the often worn-out or inadequate factory speakers in vehicles and RVs. These speakers come with a mid-bass cone and a tweeter, and can sometimes have multiple different speakers and crossovers intended to play various ranges of frequencies all in one package. In this case, you wouldn't want to connect a crossover in line with the speaker. But what about adding more than one to the same channel? That's why we are here, right? Well, let's say you had a coaxial speaker that was 4 ohms, rated for 100 watts RMS, but your amplifier can do 150 watts RMS at a 4 ohm load. You could turn the gain down to match the driver's RMS rating, losing out on the additional 50 watts. Or you could just run the full 150 watts and risk damage to the speaker or amplifier."
“There is another option. Let's assume our amplifier was stable at a 2 ohm load and was capable of 200 watts at that load. Now say we happened to have two 50 watt RMS 8 ohm tweeters with their own built-in crossovers also. Well, we could just wire them up in line parallel with the 4 ohm speaker, and now we have a 2 ohm speaker network where the 4 ohm speaker will get 100 watts and the two tweeters will receive 50 watts each. This is just one example of a speaker network; there are many more options for wiring speakers depending on the load needed. The key is to make sure that the amplifier is capable of driving the total load presented by the combined impedance of the speakers. With careful planning and attention to detail, you can create a speaker network that delivers great sound quality while also protecting your equipment. -Tha Boy Genius"
More info on this topic will soon be available in the ‘Designers Space’ section of the website. “Thank you for reading”.
