I am going to purchase 3 12inch W6, dual 6ohms. I can either wire them 4ohm mono or 1ohm mono. I was wondering what benefit would a person get by running these subs 1 ohm mono as apposed to running them 4 ohm mono. I know that you would have to get an amp thats stabel to 1 ohm mono, which is pretty expensive, but besides price, would it be better to run them 1 ohm mono or 4 ohm mono? You always here guys at competitions running their subs 1ohm mono, ( of course with an amp stable to 1ohm mono output). Why?
This will depend on the amp that you want to buy. These subs can be wired to either method, a class D amp is more efficient, thus a lower amount of power is converted to heat as compared to the class AB amp that is usually wired at 4 ohm mono. A generalization of efficiency is 80% class D vs 55% class AB. Both amplifiers will draw a large amount of current with their particular loads with these subs.
In either case you will be spending $ on an amp, be it a monster 2 channel class AB that will run at 4 ohm mono and have the proper amount of power or the more efficient class D that operates at 1 ohm mono.
Damping factor is another thing to consider, this is the ability of the amp to control the motion of the driver, it is usually better on the class AB but again it is a tradeoff, efficiency vs. damping factor. The difference in damping factor is negligable for most but not all poeple. I would bet that the class D mono is your best bet.
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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.
... and to add another factor, an amp runs with more noise at lower ohm loads since it is pushing more current. So the same amp will run at least twice as noisy with a 1 ohm load as it will with a 4 (or higher) ohm load. If SQ is your main concern, use higher impedence loads.