Ok, so I was daydreaming during another boring class of American Government and for some reason, I thought to myself that theoretically, you could take an amp that is bridgable down to .5 ohms, and run (3) 4 ohm subs in parallel, which would drop it to .5, then run 3 more in series, and bring the ohms back up to 4. And you could keep doing that for an unlimited amount of subs, as long as the amp could push them all. Just a silly thought, wanted to see what everyone thought bout it. Im done

 

Well, 3 subs at 4 ohms each would give you 1.333 ohms load at the amp. But I see what your saying. Yes you could do that as far as not overloading the amp. But all the subs would be sharing the power, so you would reach a point where the amp could not supply the enough power to satisfy each individual subs minimum power requirements. Then the subs would start sounding like total crap. But in theory the amp itself can drive as many speakers as you want, as long as the load seen at the amp doesn't exceed what the amp is rated for.

 

Kinda like this?

As long as the amp can deliver 1 watt of power to each sub you will get sound.

As far as the amp not liking it... it doesn't car how many speakers it runs, as long as it's rated resistance is met. Like 4 ohms bridged for example.

Most subs have what they call an SPL or sensativity level. It's say..... 91 dB @ 1watt/ 1 meter away. Usually shown 91dB w/m.

As long as each sub gets 1 watt, you know you'll at least hit 91 dB.

 

Someone correct me if im wrong, because i dont have my old physics books in front of me....

I believe when you hook speakers up in series, each successive speaker gets less power than the one before it, whereas in a parallel circuit everything keeps an equal amount of power.

Im not sure if my assumption is accurate or not, but it seems to me like it would sound like total *** in this situation. Kind of like running 2 subs: onw off a 20 watt amp, and one off a 100 watt amp....

 

I think I know what you're talking about, but it's from my electricity classes, not physics.

In a parallel configuration, the lesser of the two loads gets more power. However, in a series configuration, the higher of the two loads gets more power.

Since the diagram above shows equal loads in an even amount, all the speakers would get the same amount of power.

Although that's not taking into consideration the length of the wires. They must all be the same length in order to remove any variations of resistance between them. Obviously the longer wire will have more resistance. In a two speaker setup, this may not be as critical as when you are using 8 speakers.

Even so, I doubt the resistance will vary by more than .001 Ohms per ft. The quality of the connections to the speakers can cause variations greater than that.

All I can say is solder like you've never soldered before until you think it looks good ..... Then solder more!!!

AJ

 

na, physics involves a lot of electricity, i had a huge section in my high school class. Na, you don't sound like an ***... AJ's right though. Electricity likes to take the path of the least resistance. The way Series is set up, the one with the greatest resistance uses the most voltage.. or a higher %. if you have 2 4ohm speakers, they each use X amount of voltage... if you have a 4 and a 2, they the 2 will get less than the 4. But in parallel it's the other way around. They both get the same voltage. Voltage is what drives the woofer up and down... Wattage isn't the pressure, it's the voltage. Wattage is the amount of current or amperage.
Seeing as how the voltage is split in a series circuit, each sub would only get it's amount of voltage. In the case of 2-4ohm subs, if the amp can drive a cone 1", it'll drive the 2-4ohm cones 1/2" each. This is why i don't prefer bridging and wiring weird. I like a high power, 2 channel amp that delivers voltage and wattage through each channel, rather than it have the subs divide it up.

 

Assuming that all of the speakers have an equal impedance (which is more or less true to a point), all drivers in either configuration will receive equal power. Even in a properly wired series-parallel configuration, all drivers will receive equal power provided their impedances are the same.

 

So theoretically it would work, but in real life probably not after 4 or so subs, right? Like I said, it was just a thought, not plannin on doin it or anything.

 

It doesn't matter how many subs you have strung together, although it makes somebody wonder why you'd hook so many subs up to 1 amp. If you have 1 sub with a 4 ohm impedance or 20 subs with a combined 4 ohm impedance, the amp is still only making the same amount of power. Granted you'll get additional output due to the additional cone area, but you could accomplish the same thing with more power and less subs.

 

But it's fun :lala: :lala:

And isn't that what it should be?

AJ

 

Fun it is. They would all recieve equal power, but wouldn't it still be the amp's rating divided by the number of drivers? The more drivers, the less power, right?

 

Your overall output is dependant ONLY on the impedance of the load. The amp has no idea how many subs you have hooked up. 100 watts is 100 watts. Whether you send all 100 watts to 1 sub or divide it among 20 is of no concern to the amp.

 

Sorry, I meant per each driver, not at the amp. 100 drivers off of a 100 amp would recieve one watt each, right?

 

Of course. Like I said above, the amp has no idea how many speakers are hooked up. 4 ohms is 4 ohms regardless of how it's accomplished.