Hey everyone.

In a rush to get an amp shipped here to NL by Christmas, and I'm quite confused. Up until now, it was my understanding my sub was a DVC at 4 ohms. But, talking to the guy I bought it off tonight, he says it is at 2ohms because he has it wired parallel. So I'm pretty well shafted in my search for the right amp, and in trying to get it here by Christmas. Here's a picture of the speaker wires coming out of the box:



As you can see, there are 2 sets, each with a Pos and a Neg. Now, he said he had it wired in Parallel. If that was the case, and it is a DVC, I'd assume there would be one wire coming out. However, there are obviously two, which leads me to believe that it must be a DVC, and each is wired up seperate. Anyone car to comment? I need help!

 

From what I read in your post you sound very confused. You may want to google ohms law and correct wiring of dual voice coil subs. In short, look at your sub, it seems to be dvc, and look at the ohm rating on it. If you are planning to wire this single sub to a one-channel amp, you have two options. You can either double that ohm rating number or half it, depending if you wire it in series or parallel. And that would be your final load number/rating/impedance. Then you need to look for an amp, which is capable of running on that impedance. The amp may or may not be stable at a certain impedance. I suggest, do not rush for Christmas deadline, but do your research and learn a bit more before you blow up your car or yourself.

 

Thanks for that info Sasha, it was helpful. Well, my curiosity got the best of me, and I just hauled the sub out of the ported box. It is, indeed, a DVC at 4ohms. But, it doesn't like to be wired up and particular way, just a set of wires for each of the 2 terminals, running out of the box. Here are a few pictures:





( ^ Other Terminal is the same as this one)

As you can see, it's positive wire to positive terminal, and negative wire to negative terminal on each side. So, it's not wired up for 2ohms like he said, as the 2 positive terminals would connect by a wire, and the same for the negative terminals, and run out of the box via one wire. Now, say I want to run it at 4ohms on a monoblock amp, what do I do? Or 2ohms on a monoblock amp, what do I do? I have a Monoblock lined up, but if ran at 2ohms, it'll be over my RMS rating. Ran at 4 ohms it's be near perfect. Care to help?

 

With dual 4ohm coils you have two options. Wiring the coils in parallel with give you a 2ohm load (both positives together and both negatives together) and wired in series will give you an 8ohm load (not very practical with a single sub). You can either run a mono amp that is 2ohm stable, a two channel wired 4ohm stereo, or a two channel bridged mono with a 2ohm load (check before buying that it will run at 2ohms bridged).

 

So, I can't run this sub to a monoblock unless it is at 2ohms? I was thinking what if I joined the two negatives at the terminal on the amp, and the two positives to run it at 4ohms on a monoblock....but I doubt that would work?

 

You can't run that sub at 4ohms because you have two 4ohm coils. Most monoblock's will run at 2 ohms. What amp do you have there now? And to answer your question about the 2 negatives together at the amp on one terminal and the same for the positives, that is a 2ohm load.

 

I've got no amp at the moment, peicing my system together. Now, since that would be a 2ohm load, then it would screw the 4ohm sub I have correct? Like I said, I've found an amp to run this on, a Kenwood KAC9103D, which would give it 500 RMS at 4ohm, and 900 RMS at 2ohm. And, since I could not wire it to be 4ohm, if I wired it to 2 ohms by connecting the negative with the negative and positive with the positive teminals on the sub, it'd be feeding it way too much power. So, what should i do? Wire it to 2ohms (How would I do that? Certain type of wire, or splice the wire?) and look for an amp to run it properly (500-700 RMS) at 2ohms?

 

What model is your sub and what is it's rms rating?

 

15" Mmats ProCast On the bottom it's rated at 600 RMS, but it could easily take 700 or 800, they were underrated. Some people run them on 1000 RMS I belive. But running 900 RMS through it would be a bit dicey to me....any suggestions?

 

Not if you run the gains set modestly.