what's the difference between 4 ohm and 2 ohm for subwoofers?

Question

I heard 2 ohm is better than 4 ohm. why is that? and also how do you hook up a 4 ohm? is it just like wiring up a regular speaker?

Answer 1

There is an electrical componant called a resisitor inside of speakers. This resister is measured in ohms like lightbulb is measured in watts. there are 2ohm and 4 ohm speakers. For the most part, 4 ohm speakers are the most common in household and audio unless you begin talking about integrated systems. Integrated systems is a way for a manufacturer such as Mongoose to sell you only their parts. Because if you mix a 2ohm speaker with a 4ohm system, the sound will distort quicker at lower volumes. it is best to use the same ohm speakers with the same ohm systems for clarity and sound quality. Hope this helped.

Answer 2

Its all about resistance. The 4OHm is safer for the AMP because when using a 4ohm capable AMP and hooking up a 2Ohm woofer will cause the AMP to cook itself. But if its a 2OHM capable Amp you can use 2 and 4 ohm speakers but the 2ohm will sound louder due to less resistance. And hooking up a 4ohm speaker is easy there is usually 2 termials just make sure you hook up the + and - right otherwise the speaker will be out of phase. Which means the Cone will travel backwards and bottom out the voice coil and damage it. you can check your connection with a 9 volt battery with a pop test when you got the connection right at the amp the cone will travel outward away from the magnet. if you got it wrong it will travel towards the magnet. it helps to identity what wire is + and which is - . Duel Voice coil types have 4 terminals they are usually rated 2OHM each to get 4OHMs out of it you connect the + side of one terminal to the - of the other pair of terminals then you connect the amp to the left over terminals. You should have + on one side and a - on the other side that will give you 4OHms if you want to use a duel Voice coil woofer in 2 OHms connect a pair of terminals to 1 channel on the amp and then connect the other pair of terminals to the second channel on the amp. Or just use a pair of duel voice coil woofers and use only one pair of terminals per speaker. that will still put you at 2 ohms but only do that when the amp is made to handle 2ohm loads. if you daisy chain a pair of 4 ohm speakers when you connect all - to each speaker and to the AMp and do the same for the +. The OHM will be half the rating. which is 2Ohms.

Answer 3

One is not better than another. They are used for different wiring methods, that's all.

So you best understand, think of this.... should I kink the garden hose 25%(4 ohms) or 75%(2 ohms). 100% would be 0 ohms or a dead short to the power source (the amp).

The above is actually inversly proportional to the outcome, but for explanation purposes, it'll have to do.

When loading an amp, the lower the ohms the harder it must work and the hotter it'll get. Likewise the higher the distortion.

The different speaker ohms just allows you to choose wiring methods to get the right ohms.

For instance, if you want to load an amp at 4 ohms with two subs, then you would get two 2 ohm and wire them in series. http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j230/sparky3489/SERIES.jpg This adds the ohms together.

-or-

if you want to load an amp at 2 ohms with two subs, then you would get two 4 ohm and wire them in parallel. http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j230/sparky3489/PARALLEL.jpg This divides the ohms only if both values are the same. The fomula for parallel is:

Where Z = total ohms and sub# is each sub (or coil in a multi-coiled sub):

Z = 1 / (1/sub1 + 1/sub2 + 1/sub3 + ...) as many as you have.

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Here is some info on enclosures, sub wiring methods and other tips: http://spkrbox1.spaces.live.com