Steven I tried to pm you this question but you are so popular your box was full. Anyway I was wondering about the brahama 12, it says in the owners manual it can handle 1 ohm, but the main page says 2 ohms, can you clarify? I was planning on running a hifonics brutus amp, but it operates at only 1 ohm, probably be running 1000 watts if I can hook em up together.
and would you recommend a sealed or ported box?
thanks steven, or anyone who can answer this
ty, you're a little confused about ohms and ohm load. A speaker doesn't run on ohms, it instead creates the ohm load on the amplifier. For example, a single 4 ohm woofer presents an ohm load of 4 ohms on the amplifier. The amplifier responds to that load and produces current. The woofer then receives the current and produces sound, measured in watts.
Now, dual voice coil woofers: if the sub has two coils at 4 ohm resistance each, the coils can be wired together (parallel) to form a 2 ohm load on the amp. Now the amp responds to that lower resistive ohm load and produces a higher current. The woofer responds with sound, again measured in watts. If you have two of these DVC 4 ohm woofers, and both were wired to 2 ohms each, the two woofers can then be wired together (in parallel) to make a 1 ohm load. Most amps shut down under these low resistive conditions, but some are built for high current applications and can send current back to the speakers. The woofers respond by making sound, measured in watts.
An Adire Brahma 12MKII is a dual voice coil woofer, with each coil at 2 ohms. This woofer can be wired to a 1 ohm load by paralleling the coils. Do this only if the amp is capable of handling 1 ohm loads. The woofer can, instead, be wired to a 4 ohm load too. The coils would instead be series-wired. This puts a 4 ohm load on an amp. This may be what caused your confusion: woofers are built to present an ohn load, but a DVC woofer is rated like: DVC 2 ohm, can be wired to either 1 ohm or 4 ohm.
The Hifonics Brutus amplifier is capable of a 1 ohm load, and will send its highest current when connected with that low ohm load. It, like all amps, will respond to various ohm loads. You see it has an output rating at 2 ohms and at 4 ohms, too.
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Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.
thank you for your speedy reply, sorry I have never worked with DVC's before, but parallel would be running one positive wire from the amp to one voice coil, then one positive wire from that voice coil to the other right? Then just repeat the process for the negative wire? And would you recommed a ported box or sealed?
Sorry, I turn off all my PM's as I prefer people to contact me through e-mail. You can e-mail me at skephart@adireaudio.com if you have a question you don't want to post publicly.
You are correct in your wiring description above. Be careful with that amplifier and be sure to set the gains properly. I have seen MANY Brahma's come back broken from that amplifier and improper gain setting.
Only you can decide whether ported or sealed would be better. A ported enclosure will be louder, but require a much larger enclosure. Also power handling is greatly reduced in ported enclosures due to the extra efficiency. So you will have to be even more careful with that amp. How loud do you want it to be? How much room do you have available?
Steven Kephart
Adire Audio
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