How do you wire a dual voice coil subwoofer either in parallel or a series?

Question

I have 2 kicker CVR 12's and am looking into buying an Alpine mrd-m605 amp..how do I wire the subs using both voice coils

Answer 1

parallel is connecting both positives of the sub together and both negatives together .that will give you either a 1 ohm or 2 ohm load .series is connecting 1 positive to 1 negative of the sub together for either a 4 or 8 ohm load .you didnt say if they are the dual 2 or dual 4 ohm subs but they are 400 watts rms per sub and the alpine is 600 watts rms at 2 ohm mono so either way that amp wont give you the right amount of power.go to onlinecarstereo.com you can match the subs and amp there if you need more help email me

Answer 2

Subwoofer Dual Voice Coil Wiring

Answer 3

Series connection means we simply add each driver's impedance for a total impedance. This is described as

Rtot = R1 + R2+......

A parallel connection is a bit more tricky. the total impedance is described as

1/Rtot=1/R1+1/R2+........


This means if you hook two 4 ohm speakers in series, then the impedance will be 8 ohms. More resistance for your amp to push.

If you hook in parallel, then then the impedance will be 2 ohms on the speakers, meaning the amp will be pushing out more power because there is less resistance.

You'll want to make sure your amp is able to handle 2 ohms or lower, if you hook up in parallel, or else you'll find your amp overheating and eventually burn out prematurely.


The essence of series wiring is really quite simple: When speakers are connected in this fashion, load impedance increases – the more speakers, the higher the impedance. The most common reason for wanting to raise impedance is to lower acoustical output, as in the case of rear-fill or center-channel speakers. Speaker output declines because the amplifier's power output decreases as the load impedance increases. While you can connect any number of speakers in series, try to keep the total equivalent-load impedance for each channel below 16 ohms, since most amps are not designed to handle higher loads.


Parallel wiring has the opposite effect of series wiring – load impedance drops when speakers are wired in this fashion. And the more speakers you wire in, the lower the impedance. The most common reason for wanting to lower impedance is to raise acoustical output. Speaker output increases because the amplifier's power output rises as the load impedance decreases.


It is ok to hook up speaker in either parallel or series, but you need to keep the above impedance rules in mind.

Me personally, I treat a dual coil subwoofer as 2 speakers, since they have 2 negs and 2 positives per speaker. I'd either get a 4 channel amp, or get two 2 channel amps and hook them up with one amp output per speaker input.

Answer 4

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