kicker compr impedance switch

I have dual 2 Ohm DVC Kicker CompR 10's that I am wiring up. I have never used a sub with a switch for impedance before. After reading through the forums and looking at the wiring chart I have determined that to get a 2 Ohm load for the amp I need to wire as follows: Amp pos to sub 1 pos, sub 1 pos to sub 2 pos, and the same for the negative with the switch set to 4 Ohm. Hooked up like this my multimeter is reading about 2.5 Ohm through the speaker wire. Does this sound like the correct setup to see 2 ohm on my amp? Thanks in advance.

Also, the 2 options on the switch are 4 Ohm and 1 Ohm.

Using both VCs you can only have 4 else 1 Ohm.

To get 2 Ohm you can only use 1 VC.

The subwoofer wiring wizard says with 2 ohm DVC subs I should be able to have 0.5, 2, or 8 Ohm. Am I missing something?

Ah - TWO 2Ohm Dual VCs...

Sorry, my mistake. I misread...

Two 2 Ohm in parallel is 1 Ohm; two 2 Ohm in series is 4 Ohm.

But with 2 DVCs you can then have four 2 Ohm in parallel = 0.5 Ohm; four 2 Ohm in series is 8 Ohm.

Or Series/parallel to get you back to 2 Ohm - ie 2 parallels connected in series (or 2 connected in series paralleled with the other 2 in series).



Your measuring of 2.5 ohm instead of the 2 you'd expect should be because the "impedance" (2 Ohms) quoted for a speaker is an average impedance or paraphrased, an 'average resistance' over the frequency range involved.
But check by measuring the resistance of a single VC and comparing that to the final 2+2 parallel/series combo which should be the same.


FYI - Your multimeter probably only measures resistance which is the DC (zero frequency) wire etc resistance of your VC. The non-zero frequency resistance - ie, AC resistance aka reactance - is the other part that makes up impedance.
And that's probably confused the heck out of you...

Anyhow, normal DMMs won't measure speaker impedances accurately but will measure their resistance which will be less but reasonably close.


You might want to read a bit elsewhere - maybe from this site, or BCAE1.com, or even Wiki - eg from here:

Impedance curve of a 4 ohm, 120 mm speaker
(With thanks yet again to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

OK, thanks for the explanation. I just wanted to make sure I was wiring it properly, as I have never used one with a switch on the sub instead of having terminals for both VCs. These only have the one set of terminals, and the VC wiring is done internally, I guess.

I'd assume the switch merely does what you'd otherwise do manually.
(I can't imagine them including resistors to get 'other' impedances since (1) the resistors required need to be so big & (2) it merely wastes power - it does not add to speaker output power.

Of course switches might add unreliability - dirty or failed contacts etc.