Please 'Boom' Responsibly As most of you have noticed, the noise ordinances have become much tougher lately. Most of this is due to idiots, yes IDIOTS, who drive through residential areas with their windows down while their system is playing at full power. To make things worse, the music they listen to has all sorts of foul language that's not suitable for small children, (who may be playing outside). There are even a few people, who are even beyond idiot status, that play their systems at full power through residential areas after 10:00 PM (when many people go to bed). I don't believe that this type of behavior is good for the industry. If the fines get too stiff, people will stop buying large systems. If this happens, more people will get out of car audio (who wants a mediocre system). People get interested in things because they're exciting. A deck and four 6.5" speakers are not going to interest many of the younger car audio enthusiasts. If car audio enthusiasts keep annoying more and more people, the fines will keep getting tougher. All of this will only reduce interest in the equipment that fuels the industry. If you want to listen to your system at full volume, get out on the highway where there's little chance of bothering anyone. When you get to a red light, turn it down. If the only thing attractive about you is your 'system', you have some work to do. Bottom line... Think about what you're doing. Think about other people. It's not the end of the world if you have to turn the volume down for a little while.

Series Connection:
We described series speaker connections on a previous page. This page will explain how the impedance changes when speakers are connected in series. In a series connection you simply connect the positive terminal of speaker 'A' to positive terminal of the amplifier. Then you connect the negative terminal of spkr 'A' to the positive terminal of speaker 'B'. Lastly connect the negative terminal of speaker 'B' to the negative terminal of the amplifier. If both of the speakers have an impedance of 4 ohms, the total impedance will be 8 ohms. In a series connection, you simply add the individual impedances. If there were three 4 ohm speakers in series, the total impedance will be 12 ohms.

Speakers connected in SERIES

Parallel Connection:
The impedance change with a parallel speaker connection is only slightly more complicated than the series connection. When speakers are connected in parallel, the impedance is reduced. This means that, given the same output voltage, the current demand on the amplifier will be increased. If all speakers have the same impedance, the total impedance is the impedance of a single speaker divided by the total number of speakers. If you have two 4 ohm speakers connected in parallel, the total impedance is 4/2 or 2 ohms. As you can see in the diagram below, all of the positive speaker connections are connected and then connected to the positive terminal of the amplifier. The same is done with all of the negative connections. You must be careful when paralleling speakers onto an amplifier. The impedance can quickly fall below safe levels. This is especially true when connecting speakers in parallel onto a bridged amplifier.

Speakers connected in PARALLEL

Enter the impedance of the speakers that are connected in parallel (starting at the top).
Data Input:
Speaker one's impedance? = ohms
Speaker two's impedance? = ohms
Speaker three's impedance? = ohms
Speaker four's impedance? = ohms
Data Output:
Two speaker's parallel impedance = ohms
Three speaker's parallel impedance = ohms
Four speaker's parallel impedance = ohms

Calculator Legend

This is a series/parallel connection (below). Connecting individual woofers in a series configuration is not common in car audio. This is a lot more common in musical instrument (guitar and bass guitar) speaker cabinets. spkr4sp4.gif

In the diagrams below, you can see the relative current flow from the amplifier's outputs (indicated by the red arrows) into various loads. At the bottom, you can see that 2 ohm mono (two 4 ohm speakers bridged) is the same as 1 ohm stereo (four 4 ohm speakers per channel).

spk2s4.gif spk4s4.gif spk1m4.gif spk2m4.gif spk8s4.gif

The image below shows the DVC speaker wired to both channels of a stereo amplifier. Each channel of the amplifier drives a 4 ohm load.
DVC driver wired normally
This image shows the DVC driver with both voice coils wired in parallel. This presents a 2 ohm mono load to the amplifier which may damage most amplifiers.
DANGER DANGER Will Robinson!!
Impedance of each voice coil?
 Actual Mono load:
 Equivalent Ohms/Channel:

This image shows the two 4 ohm voice coils wired in series. This will present a 8 ohm mono load to the amplifier. I couldn't think of anything cool to write here.
Impedance of each voice coil?
 Actual Mono load:
 Equivalent Ohms/Channel:

This diagram shows 3 DVC woofers with dual 6 ohm voice coils. The coils of each speaker are wired in series (which makes each speaker a 12 ohm speaker) and then all of the drivers are wired in parallel for a total of a 4 ohm load.

Impedance of each voice coil?
 Actual Mono load:
 Equivalent Ohms/Channel:

This diagram shows 2 DVC woofers with dual 2 ohm voice coils. The coils of each speaker are wired in parallel (which makes each speaker a 1 ohm speaker) and then all of the drivers are wired in parallel for a total of a .5 ohm load. You can calculate for more speakers by changing the input.

Impedance of each voice coil?
 Number of Speakers?
 Actual Mono load:

This is the wiring diagram for woofers with dual 4 ohm voice coils. This will give you a 4 ohm load. The voice coils of each individual speakers are wired in series. This gives each speaker an 8 ohm impedance. Wiring them in parallel will present the amp with a 4 ohm load.

Impedance of each voice coil?
 Actual Mono load:
 Equivalent Ohms/Channel:

This is the wiring diagram for woofers with dual 2 ohm voice coils. This will give you a 2 ohm load. The voice coils of each individual speakers are wired in series. This gives each speaker an 4 ohm impedance. Wiring them in parallel will present the amp with a 2 ohm load. You can calculate for more speakers by entering the number of speakers in the correct field.

Impedance of each voice coil?
 Number of Speakers?
 Actual Mono load:

This diagram is a wiring diagram for 3 DVC drivers with dual 6 ohm coils. All of the voice coils are wired in parallel for a 1 ohm load. Class D and high current class AB amplifiers are probably the only amplifiers that can handle this load. Make sure that your amplifier can handle this load if you use this wiring configuration.

Impedance of each voice coil?
 Actual Mono load:
 Equivalent Ohms/Channel:

This diagram shows 2 DVC speakers with the voice coils wired in parallel. Each voice coil has an impedance of 4 ohms which results in a 2 ohm impedance for each speaker. One speaker is connected to each channel of the amplifier. This is a 2 ohm stereo load.

Impedance of each voice coil?
 Equivalent Mono load:
 Actual Ohms/Channel:

WARNING: Another lame analogy ahead
For those who don't quite understand why too many speakers will damage an amplifier, maybe this will help (and then again maybe not).
OK, let's say that we have a water pump which is powered by a Ford V8 (sorry Ford guys but I wasn't going to blow up a Chevy motor just to explain how an amp is damaged by too many speakers) :-) This pump is designed to do whatever is necessary to keep the pressure constant. It is also designed to operate with only two valves open at a time. In this first diagram, you can see that one valve is open and the RPMs are easily in the green. This is like a 2 ohm stable amplifier with a 4 ohm load.
4 ohm load
In this next diagram, you can see that there are 2 valves open and the RPMs are higher but still not in the red. It would likely run like this forever without a problem (even though it's a Ford :-). This would be analogous to a 2 ohm stable amp with two 4 ohm speakers for a 2 ohm total load. 2 ohm load
The diagram below shows how an amp might 'feel' with three 4 ohm speakers (for a 1.33 ohm load) on a 2 ohm stable amp. As you can see, the engine would have to be slightly in the red to keep up the proper pressure with three valves open. This is bordering on failure. 1.3 ohm load
This diagram shows all 4 valves open. The engine has to be revved WAY into redline to maintain pressure and will soon fail. This is how a 2 ohm stable amplifier 'sees' a 1 ohm stereo or a 2 ohm mono load. 1 ohm load WOW, can you believe that ole' Ford didn't blow up?

Calculating Series and Parallel Resistance

Calculating Series Resistance:
Calculating series resistance is as simple as it gets. All you do is add the resistance of the individual components. If you have two 4 ohm speakers in series...
Total resistance = R1 + R2 +R3...
Total resistance = 4 + 4
Total resistance = 8 ohms for 2 series connected 4 ohm speakers.
 
Calculating Parallel Resistance:
Calculating parallel resistance is a little more involved but still fairly easy. There are 3 methods.
Method #1:
If all of the resistances are equal (all 4 ohm speakers or all 8 ohm speakers...), simply divide the impedance of a single speaker by the total number of speakers.
Total resistance = 4/2 (4 ohms speakers divided by the number of speakers)
Total resistance = 2
 
Method #2:
This one says that the sum of the reciprocal of the individual resistances is equal to the reciprocal of the total impedance. Well, I know that that sounds complicated but look at the following formula and you'll see that it ain't so bad. Let's do the calculations for two 4 ohm speakers in parallel.
1/(total resistance) = (1/R1) + (1/R2) + (1/R3)...
1/(total resistance) = 1/4 + 1/4
1/(total resistance) = .25 + .25
1/(total resistance) = .5
Total resistance = 2 ohms
 
Method #3:
This method is most useful for calculating the parallel resistance of 2 components. It can be used for more than two components at a time but the formula becomes convaluted and much more difficult. This method uses the product of the individual resistances divided by the sum of the resistances. Like this...
Total resistance = (R1*R2)/(R1+R2)
Total resistance = (4*4)/(4+4)
Total resistance = 16/8
Total resistance = 2
 
As you can see, all 3 methods result in the same answer.

Calculating Series/Parallel Resistance

Calculating the total resistance of a combination series/parallel network has to be taken in steps. If you have the following circuit with 2 parallel components in series with a third resistive component (we're going to consider the 4 ohm speaker to be purely resistive), first you have to calculate the total resistance of the parallel section. Then the total resistance is equal to the series component plus the total of the parallel components.

Parallel components:
 
Total parallel resistance = (R1*R2)/(R1+R2)
Total parallel resistance = (4*8)/(4+8)
Total parallel resistance = 32/12
Total parallel resistance = 2.67 ohms
 
Total parallel plus Series:
 
Total resistance = R1 + R2
Total resistance = 4 + 2.67
Total resistance = 6.67 ohms total

Click HERE to make the calculator fill this window.

You should remember:
1.In a series circuit, the current flow decreases and the impedance increases.
2.In a parallel circuit, the current flow increases and the impedance decreases.

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