Ohm Question part Deux?

Question

okay, so now I know that I am stressing my amp which spits out of two outputs a 4 ohms each into speakers at 8 ohms each. How would I go about correcting this? Would making a simple 2 to 1 speaker cable work? Plug both 4 ohm jacks into a single 8 ohm speaker?

Answer 1

Running 8 ohm speakers from a 4 ohm amp output will not stress the amp.

If you want to, you could wire two 8 ohm speakers in parallel to get an equivalent load of 4 ohms.

Parallel means you connect both + sides together, and both - sides together from both speakers.

The + and - labels on a speaker are for reference, to keep the speakers in phase. When you have two or more speakers going at once, you want them "in phase". It's not really a positive or negative terminal. It means that the cone moves out when you put a positive voltage on the positive terminal.

For bridging or paralleling amplifiers, see this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridged_amplifier

Answer 2

Because your speaker is actually a coil with a certain dc resistance through the coil, it is actually an LR or impedance load which is matched to a nominal frequency produced by the amplifier.
The first answer is correct, you will not overload your amplifier into 8 ohm speakers - I have done this numerous times with no concerns with the amplifier - however, you will not receive the maximum efficiency unless you match the load with the output.
This will probably be of no concern in actual operation.
It would possibly be more detrimental if you were to put 4 ohm speakers on an amp designed for an 8 ohm load (the current increase could cause excessive temps in the output devices) although I have done this also without letting the smoke out of the amplifier.