I know nothing about Ohms need compatibility advice

[Footloose301]

Originally Posted by Amon37

I appreciate all the info. This temp setup is going to be in the bedroom where the receivers volume will never be very loud because of the small room size and placement of the speakers. The receiver will be in the open air not in any cabinet so I will monitor the heat. They are normal speakers and your basic HT receiver.

Also, I just remembered. I used to have a Kenwood shelf system, just something to listen to music around the house, and I tried wiring up more speakers to it. It was only 2 channel running at 8ohms. I connected 2 more speakers, splicing them together with another set of 8 ohms speakers(This was years ago before I knew anything about ohms) and hooked them up and turned it on and the system wouldn't play anything, and would say "PROTECT" across the screen. By splicing those speakers together it cut the ohms in half. Putting 2 of the 8ohm speakers together gives you 4 ohms. So lucky for me the stereo recognized this and it had gone into safety mode. Just saying this in case you come across the same problem where the receiver won't do anything for you, it could go into a safe state. Which would be nice before it hurt something.

[IamNhobdy]

I am a recording engineer, graduated from SAE Institute of Technology Miami campuss.

Basic rule of thumb is as follows

Ohms should be exactly matched and the wattage of your amp output should be matched or higher than the speakers wattage. But your OHMS need to be matched.

If you still have questions, PM me and I'll be glad to talk you through it.

[IamNhobdy]

a woofer that handles 1000 watts RMS, they get a 500watt RMS amp, and the speaker is a $500 paper weight in no time just because of distortion.

this set up would burn out your amps channel. The sub(turned up to max) will TEMPORARILY try to draw the full 1000w from the amp which can only handle 500w(but it doesn't know that and will try to comply) and poof. You have just fried your sub channel. The distortion is not in the speaker....it's the channel of your amp.

That's why you want the amp to be rated higher than your speakers...you will HEAR the overload in your speakers and can adjust the level accordingly.

You will not notice a problem the other way around until it's too late.

Amp output = higher wattage than speakers
Amp Ohms = Same as speakers

[Footloose301]

Originally Posted by IamNhobdy

this set up would burn out your amps channel. The sub(turned up to max) will TEMPORARILY try to draw the full 1000w from the amp which can only handle 500w(but it doesn't know that and will try to comply) and poof. You have just fried your sub channel. The distortion is not in the speaker....it's the channel of your amp.

That's why you want the amp to be rated higher than your speakers...you will HEAR the overload in your speakers and can adjust the level accordingly.

You will not notice a problem the other way around until it's too late.

Amp output = higher wattage than speakers
Amp Ohms = Same as speakers

Distortion is created from the amp not being strong enough and causes the voice coils to heat up and burns out the speaker. It won't do anything to the amp unless you change ohms. Wattage has NOTHING to do with how much the sub is pulling from the amp. That is depends on the ohms of the speaker and how efficient the speaker is. The more efficient a speaker is- the less power it takes to reach a certain level. Each subwoofer's efficiency is rated off of 1 watt. The less efficient a speaker is-the more power it takes to get that speaker to that certain level. I already mentioned that you want a stronger amp because of distortion.

Again, like I said before. The AMP creates distortion=speaker distorts=coils heat up=speaker done.

Turning the AMP all the way up would be stupid as I already mentioned because it creates distortion. Leaving the amp all the way up, like any amp, will produce a good amount of heat and can burn it up. HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WATTAGE OF THE SPEAKER!

[Footloose301]

Originally Posted by IamNhobdy

The distortion is not in the speaker....it's the channel of your amp.

The amp creates the distortion, we know that already. Where do you think that distortion goes? It goes on to distort the speaker and ruins the speaker.

Also, I'm talking about having the amp properly tuned and only change the volume. Turning the level up to or above its distortion point is just plain craziness.

[Matt X]

Originally Posted by Footloose301

Also, I just remembered. I used to have a Kenwood shelf system, just something to listen to music around the house, and I tried wiring up more speakers to it. It was only 2 channel running at 8ohms. I connected 2 more speakers, splicing them together with another set of 8 ohms speakers(This was years ago before I knew anything about ohms) and hooked them up and turned it on and the system wouldn't play anything, and would say "PROTECT" across the screen. By splicing those speakers together it cut the ohms in half. Putting 2 of the 8ohm speakers together gives you 4 ohms. So lucky for me the stereo recognized this and it had gone into safety mode. Just saying this in case you come across the same problem where the receiver won't do anything for you, it could go into a safe state. Which would be nice before it hurt something.

...sounds like you possibly had them wired "in parallel", which gives the effect re: ohms that you described. If you wired them "in SERIES", the effect would actually double the ohms, which I believe would normally be safe. Correct me if i'm wrong, engineering guys.

[Rup_Muk]

Originally Posted by Matt X

...sounds like you possibly had them wired "in parallel", which gives the effect re: ohms that you described. If you wired them "in SERIES", the effect would actually double the ohms, which I believe would normally be safe. Correct me if i'm wrong, engineering guys.

Matt - yes, they were hooked up in parallel, which in effect halved the input impedance to the amplifier. The speakers would draw too much current from the the amp - and that made the amp go into a "protected" status, turning off the output from the amp - and nothing to be heard from the speakers.

Amon37 - yes, it can be all quite confusing and the issue of safety is dependent on the equipment - whether they have built-in overload protection or not. So, this is a classic case of "YMMV" (your milage may vary). Normally, a 8 ohm amp will drive a set of 6 ohm speakers - make sure that the volume setting is way low. Keep an ear out for audio distortion - if you hear any, turn off the system.

My 2 cents.

Rup.

[Footloose301]

Originally Posted by Rup_Muk

Matt - yes, they were hooked up in parallel, which in effect halved the input impedance to the amplifier. The speakers would draw too much current from the the amp - and that made the amp go into a "protected" status, turning off the output from the amp - and nothing to be heard from the speakers.

Amon37 - yes, it can be all quite confusing and the issue of safety is dependent on the equipment - whether they have built-in overload protection or not. So, this is a classic case of "YMMV" (your milage may vary). Normally, a 8 ohm amp will drive a set of 6 ohm speakers - make sure that the volume setting is way low. Keep an ear out for audio distortion - if you hear any, turn off the system.

My 2 cents.

Rup.

Thank you. Just what I was going to say.

[Footloose301]

Originally Posted by Matt X

...sounds like you possibly had them wired "in parallel", which gives the effect re: ohms that you described. If you wired them "in SERIES", the effect would actually double the ohms, which I believe would normally be safe. Correct me if i'm wrong, engineering guys.

Haha I liked "engineering guys". Well the ones that I had wired up were single voice coil, so I had no other options. Yes, you could consider is parallel but I don't think thats correct. Also, I spliced the wires that were just hanging out the back of the speaker box, I didn't take it apart at all. So I wasn't able to wire them in series and besides back then I just screwed around with things and didn't really know what was going on, lol.