woofer wiring confusion

Hello everyone, I've been working with car audio for years now and have finally come to a crazy idea that I'm stumped on. I have two 2 Ohm DVC woofers wired to 2 Ohms installed in the car and I was wondering if I could wire a 4 0hm DVC with them to create 1Ohm. Does this seem feasible? Has anyone done it before? If so, how would the power split work? In my head it seems like it would work and the 2 Ohm DVC woofers would get 25% each and the 4 Ohm would get 50%. Thanks for the help all.Nick C.

Hello again, by recommendation of the website I'm posting my vehicle. 2005 Scion xB If there are any other questions please let me know. Thanks!Nick C.

You are correct in your assumption of how much power each driver will see.

From what i understand, doubling cone area and power = +3Db. So, unless I'm wrong, unless you add 2 more subs and get an amp that is twice as powerful as the one you have now, your not gonna gain much more than a bad sounding system because the subs won't be working equally.

Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong.

Thanks for the confirmation. Although I've been playing with car audio for a long time, getting into the unique wiring designs is something I'm not very confident with yet. It's nice to know that my math and instincts seem to be working though. Hopefully this will help me get my system running properly and I can move on to other projects. Thanks again for your help!Nick C.

smalltime80 wrote: Hello everyone, I've been working with car audio for years now and have finally come to a crazy idea that I'm stumped on. I have two 2 Ohm DVC woofers wired to 2 Ohms installed in the car and I was wondering if I could wire a 4 0hm DVC with them to create 1Ohm. Does this seem feasible? Has anyone done it before? If so, how would the power split work? In my head it seems like it would work and the 2 Ohm DVC woofers would get 25% each and the 4 Ohm would get 50%. Thanks for the help all.

two 2 ohm dvc woofers meaning they are dual 4 ohm woofers? If each woofer is wired to 2 ohms, and they are hooked to a mono amp, you are running at 1 ohm.  If you connect a 4 ohm svc woofer in series with these, you are running 5 ohms.  The amp output power will be less than what you had before. The 2 ohm speakers will see more of the power than the 4 ohm woofer. BUT as far as the amplifier goes it sees the load as one voice coil. No matter how many woofers make up the load.  There is a limit, you dont want to hook up too many woofers to a single amp.

What is the magic number?  How many woofers can I connect to my Punch 45?

You might get several opinions on that!   Me personally, I wouldnt put more than 4 voice coils on one amp, but I have seen people hook up ten!

The quantity of voice coils connected to an amplifier with the exception of the possible wiring configurations is irrelevant, especially to the number that can be safely connected to an amplifier at one time.  To claim 4 is better or safer than 10 based on quantity alone is not correct. As long as the load does not drop below the amplifier's safe operating range at any frequency and with both loads being the same at the amplifier across all frequencies, 10 coils is the same as 4 coils to the amplifier. The amplifier has no idea how many coils are connected to it. the12volt • Support the12volt.com

thats why I said "for me personally"   it is true that the amp sees the final load in ohms, so thats one thing.  I have found that when I connect more than four voice coils to one Mono block amp (for the sake of discussion)  things tend to start sounding "sluggish"  I think it is due to the multiple voice coils actually counter acting against each other.  This is most noticable when you use different types of woofers in the same circut.  Some woofers react a little faster to the same signal as another woofer, that millisecond of lag between the voicecoils actually acts like a brake on the others.   I am speaking about what I percieve after having done these types of installs over the past 28 years.  Others may not notice it, or maybe never compared the differences in trying multiple woofers several ways in the same car. Power disapates in a voicecoil as well, the more voicecoils, the more power needed & the more power lost.

If you wire two subs together with no amp, push in on the cone of one the other wooder  reacts.   By moving the voice coil of a woofer manually, you can even light an led with nothing more than the voice coil itself. I think it is these characteristics that cause what I hear with multiple woofers on the same amp. Its that mirco second per every cycle that things are out of phase.