opinions on wire config
Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=108722
Printed Date: May 19, 2024 at 10:11 AM
Topic: opinions on wire config
Posted By: carhigh
Subject: opinions on wire config
Date Posted: November 06, 2008 at 7:49 PM
Two 2003 nissan sentras (she calls them the twins). Both came with 7 speaker systems. tweets in the front pillars, full range in the front doors, full range in the rear deck and a something like 6" sub in the rear deck which actualy has a factory amp in a container under the magnet. Neither is a rockford head unit, just the basic cd player. I got 2 boxes and amps still left coming for delivery. I took apart my sentra today and got the kenwood head units and 6 1/2 3ways in very late in the day. Each car is getting a kenwood head unit, 4 - 6 1/2 - 3way kenwoods, and a 4 chan amp to run the 2 rear 6 1/2 kenwoods and bridge the remaining 2 channels for the 12" sub in the boxes. I am also getting a free pair of tweeters with each single 12" box, but im sure they are gonna be trash. Ok, maybe a bit better than the factory tweets up front in the pillars......who knows. I have a few options on hooking up this stuff. Id like to keep the pillar tweeters, which ever ones i end up using. Lets say the factory tweeters for now. As they come hooked up, they are run with a little cap on them (filter type diod?) and are run along with the front door speakers. I was thinking maybe, since im not going to be using the rear speaker output on the radio for the rear speakers, maybe i should drive the tweeters with that hookup. Or am i better off just hooking them into (as they are now) the front door speakers? If i run them off the radio's rear output, ill get more power to them, no? And running the pillar tweets with the front speakers will rob the fronts of a little power? I know a bit about all this stuff from teenage years, but the ohm stuff never really sank in. The factory front door speakers say 4ohm on them. The tweeter i think are the same. Does that mean that running together off the radios one output for thefront they were running 2ohm? I think the answer is they would be running 8ohm, no? Kinda dont get that oh thing. Thanks for any help
Replies:
Posted By: boogeyman
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 7:26 AM
Use the cap on the pillar tweets, wich ever tweets you decide to use . Hook the pillar tweets and the front door speakers up to 2 channels of the amp........Hook the rear 6.5 speakers to the rear speaker output of your kenwood Head Unit........remaing channels of amp to the sub(s).......Make sure you properly set the gains on your amp
Posted By: 04nata
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 8:29 AM
so according to this you can run 1 tweet and 1 front mid on one channel of the amp, which will give you a 2 ohm load on 2 of the channels, but is it also ok to run 1 each of the back speakers of 1 each channel which would give a 4 ohm load? question is, can you run 2 channles at 2 ohm and 2 channels at 4 ohm (providing it is a 4 channel amp)?
Posted By: the12volt
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 8:51 AM
Impedance is relative to frequency. If you are running a 4 ohm 6 1/2" full range speaker and a 4 ohm tweeter with a capacitor on a single channel, the impedance below the crossover point of the capacitor will be around 4 ohms. Above the crossover point of the capacitor, the impedance will be around 2 ohms. This of course is a generalization without knowing the exact impedance curve of each of the speakers you are using. -------------  the12volt • Support the12volt.com
Posted By: 04nata
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 8:59 AM
so for my simple MIND (amd I mean simple) if I run a 4 ohm mid (6.5) and a 4 ohm tweeter together on one channel, I can basically count it as a total 4 ohm impedance????????????????????
Posted By: the12volt
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 9:09 AM
If you use a proper crossover, yes. ------------- the12volt • Support the12volt.com
Posted By: 04nata
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 9:24 AM
I use the crossover in the amp, and whatever comes assembled to the tweeter
Posted By: carhigh
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 9:47 AM
I dont think either of these sets of tweeters are going to live if i put an amp to them. I was going to see how it went with just the front 6 1/2 kenwoods off the radio power and if i felt i needed to put an amp to them, just later on add a small amp under the dash. I am in the middle of installing stuff in my car and still havent decieded weather i should drive the tweeters off the rear HU output, or just leave them connected in with the front door speakers as the factory installed them. I should probably hook them into the rear output of the HU.
Posted By: boogeyman
Date Posted: November 07, 2008 at 11:55 AM
if your not going to use an amp....leave the tweets connected in with the front door speakers as the factory did
Posted By: carhigh
Date Posted: November 11, 2008 at 4:39 PM
Damit!!!!! Got the amp running the sub and rear deck speakers, front doors running off radio front output and pillar tweets off the rear output on radio and it sounds like CRAP !!!!!! I SHOULD have listened !!! There is way to much in the rear and i CAN NOT hear much of the front at all, including the tweeters, LOL So, im gonna change the rear deck 6 1/2's back to the radio rear output. Run the front door 6 1/2's and the tweeters off the amp with radio's front RCA's. The 6 1/2 front door kenwoods and the tweeters are both 4ohm. What is the best way to connect them to the amp? The amp is stable at 2 or 4ohms. And as ive said, that ohm thing has been a bit confusing to me since forever. I know i have two choices, series and parallel, but not sure on which would be better.
Posted By: carhigh
Date Posted: November 11, 2008 at 9:45 PM
WOW what a difference!! I hooked the front 6 1/2 doors and pillar tweeters in parallel to the amp. It sounds a ton better, but i dont think the 20 watt factory tweeters are going to live long :) Gonna run the twin sub and amp setup in the wifes car tomorrow and think i might try the freebie tweeters and see the difference if i can get them to fit in the pillars. With the hook up the way it is, i am running the front pillar tweeters and door speakers at 2ohm's, correct? Which means there is less resistance and more power being forced down the throat of a very crappy set of tweeters ....... right?
Posted By: boogeyman
Date Posted: November 12, 2008 at 7:47 AM
If you think the front tweets are going to blow, hook them to the front speaker output of the head unit.
Posted By: SKratch
Date Posted: November 12, 2008 at 1:06 PM
The load depends on your wiring.... if you run the speakers (all four, 4 ohm) in parallel, {++ --} you'll have a 2ohm load. If you put them in series {speaker one + to amp's +, speaker 1 - to speaker 2 +, then speaker 1 - to amp -} you get an 8 ohm load.
The tweeters with the resistors likely present barely any load at all, as far as your amp will see it..don't worry to much about that, in real-world applications you can really over-complicate when it comes to these things....
And as I'm sure you've learned, the front staging is key. Never amplify behind you..you don't go to a concert and face away from the stage, do ya? Put the amp on the front speakers and tweeters, or all of the speakers (in series, as described above) and run the sub off the rear two in a 2 0r 4 ohm stereo, or 4 ohm bridged load..and that should get you where you wanna be.
Posted By: SKratch
Date Posted: November 12, 2008 at 1:09 PM
SKratch wrote:
{speaker one + to amp's +, speaker 1 - to speaker 2 +, then speaker 2 - to amp -} you get an 8 ohm load.
That's how it should correctly read...sorry, dude.
Posted By: carhigh
Date Posted: November 12, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Oh my, i just pulled the factory tweeters and have a problem. They seem to have three poles. positive goes direct to pole 1, negative goes direct to pole 2, then there is also the filter attatched to pole 2 with one lead and the other filters lead goes to pole 3 ...... eeeeek I am making a blind guess here, that pole 2 is a dummy pole, since the back side does not seem to have a microscopic wire running down into the tweeter. I am going to try and wire the new tweeters i got for free with this filter and compare one car to the other with different tweeters. Also, thanks for hitting the subject about running them all off the amp. I ran the rears, the doors and the tweeters all off two chans of the amp. It sounds really kick ass and think im gonna do mine also, when im done with hers. I ran them all in parallel and hope i am not making a mistake !!!
Posted By: carhigh
Date Posted: November 12, 2008 at 3:05 PM
Great, more confussion. One tweeter has the filter in the negative side and the other has the filter in the positive side. Which one came from which side, i have no clue. Im not sure if i should put these the same way and see what side gets which one when my car gets home. Any suggestions?
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