Truck audio wiring question

[HEMI®Dart]

I am going to bridge my amp to power a single DVC 10" Subwoofer.



How do I wire a dual voice coil equipped woofer to get a 4 or 8 Ohm load?



My amp is not 2 ohm stable in bridged mode. My directions say how to wire it for a 2 ohm load

 

[JBoesl]

Hi,

You first need to know if your dvc 10 is a 4 or 8 ohm per side.

If it is a 8ohm sub it will run your amp at 4 ohms bridged.

If it is a 4ohm sub it will run your amp at 2 ohms bridged.

Most amps will not run at 2ohms bridged but you can do it, your amp will run very hot and not last long.

Your amp is probably 2ohm stable in stereo , so you can run 2 DVC in stereo at 2ohms, but mainly you need to know if your sub is dual 4 or dual 8 ohm before we can go any further. It should tell you on the sub magnet. Hope this helps. If you were to give me the amp brand and sub brand , as well as the specs. I could help you more.



Jason



I am going to bridge my amp to power a single DVC 10" Subwoofer.



How do I wire a dual voice coil equipped woofer to get a 4 or 8 Ohm load?



My amp is not 2 ohm stable in bridged mode. My directions say how to wire it for a 2 ohm load

 

[Dane]

Hemi, Just run each amp channel (left and right) to each of the subs voice coils (left and right) and don't run it in bridged mode. You'll get just as much bass with no worrys about frying the amp. If your preamp source is not a sub output just use a "Y" adapter from either the left or right channel preamp output. If the amp has a stereo/mono switch just switch it to mono and forget the "Y" and run left and right pre out to the left and right pre in on the amp.



If you don't like that idea you can wire the subs voice coils in series and run the amp in bridged mode.



If you want to know if it's an 8 or 4 ohm voice coil just measure it with an ohm meter. A 8 ohm will read around 6 ohms and a 4 ohm will read around 2-3 ohms. The static readings will always be a bit lower than the dynamic rating because the voice coil acts like an inductor. The ratings on speakers is inductance not static ohms.



You can find the voice coil polarity if it's not marked by using a 1. 5 volt battery. when you connect the battery to the voice coil and the speaker cone moves outward, the + of the battery is connected to the + side of the voice coil.



To wire the voice coils in series, connect the voice coils + - + - and wire the amp to the outside + and -

 

[HEMI®Dart]

Thanks Guys



I wired the voice coils independently for now. The Sub is getting 200 watts @ 4 Ohms. It sounds NICE. Very Tight & Clean bass. I'm firing it at the passenger side wall behind the seat. The sound seems to surround the cab. Can't tell its in the corner. Its an SAS Bazooka RS10"DVC tube (4 Ohms a coil). I couldn't be happier.



Question: The tube comes with 'Bridge Plates' to wire the DVC in Parallel for a 2 Ohm load. Can I put the bridge plates back in and run 2 seperate channels to the DVC? 1 channel to each VC? This would give me 400 watts total (200w a VC) @ 2 Ohms?

 

[Cooker]

"The tube comes with 'Bridge Plates' to wire the DVC in Parallel for a 2 Ohm load. Can I put the bridge plates back in and run 2 seperate channels to the DVC? 1 channel to each VC? This would give me 400 watts total (200w a VC) @ 2 Ohms?"



No Hemi this will not work.



The others have got you taken care of. I say your best bet is to run each channel to each VC, like you have running currently.



Or as Dane suggested you could bridge your amp, and run the speaker in series, but you would be achieving the same power output.



If your amp is 2ohm stable in stero, why not get another sub and run each channel of the amp to each sub wired in parellel. This way you'd have (2) 10" subs at 200 watts each?



-Ryan

 

[HEMI®Dart]

Thanks Cooker







My amp will put out 400 x 2 @ 4 Ohms in bridged mode. But if I series wire a DVC now I have 8 Ohms, and half the available wattage (200) now goes to the sub?



#ad




Or what if I bridge 2 channels and only wireup 1 VC, and leave the other VC un-wired, am I losing out?



It seems like a DVC speaker gives you less options to wire than a SVC!

 

[Cooker]

Nice pic Hemi



On the contrary, it is my personal opinion that a DVC driver has more potential than a SVC driver. Although this is individual to the application, and since it sounds like you already had the amp, it may have not been the best choice for your app (we'll see)



Hemi, I am confused. Is your amp 2 channel or 4 channel? You said your amps output is "400 x 2 @ 4 Ohms in bridged mode". This statement has confused me. You meant 400x1 right?



I assume your amp is 100x2 @ 4 ohms or 200x2 @ 2 ohms. Right? Your amp bridged is 400x1 @ 4ohms right? The reason it is not stable bridged at 2 ohms is becasue the resistence on a bridged amp is 2 ohms not 4 (even though the manual may say 4). So if you wire a bridged amp in parallel the resistence becomes 1 ohm not 2 and as already mentioned, at 1 ohm many amps are unstable and heat up quickly.



If you take a bridged amp to power a DVC woofer wired in series the impedence doubles (or another way to say it is your wattage is cut in 1/2). So your amp that is stable bridged producing 400 watts will only produce 200 watts when it is connected to a DVC driver wired in series. Like I said the driver will see the same 200 watts either way (in stero or bridged in series).



I think you just need to BOMB the stero a little more . Get another 10" DVC and throw it behind the drivers seat and enjoy 200w to each driver. If you stick with one driver, is there any chance you could switch the DVC for an SVC. This way you could take advantage of the 400w the amp can produce in bridged mode.

 

[HEMI®Dart]

Cooker,



Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. I have read the achives about stereos & subs and you know alot about them.



I have a 4 channel Rockford Fosagte Punch 800. 4 amp



Specs here: http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-hJL4CURijas/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=3&g=120&I=575G18004&o=P&a=0



I have the door speakers wired to 2 channels as normal.



If a got an 8 ohm DVC woofer (paralell wired), then I could use the 2 rear channels in a bridged mono mode, and the amp would see 4 Ohms?



How much difference would I notice with the Sub gettting 400 watts as opposed to 200 watts at low to mid volume?



Thanks

 

[Cooker]

Hemi,



If your DVC driver is 8ohm, then yes your statement: "If a got an 8 ohm DVC woofer (paralell wired), then I could use the 2 rear channels in a bridged mono mode, and the amp would see 4 Ohms?" is correct. Two 8ohm VC wired in parallel would create a 4ohm load.



"How much difference would I notice with the Sub gettting 400 watts as opposed to 200 watts at low to mid volume?"



In low to mid volume you will probably notice very little difference, it is when you start getting a little carried away is when you will hear a difference. The driver will obviously have the ability to play louder with the added wattage, but more importantly it will play cleaner to a higher level of volume (this is assuming the driver is rated for 400 watts RMS to begin with). You won't have to push the amp as hard (and cause it to "clip") to achieve higher levels of volume. The driver with 200 watts will distort sooner (at a lower sound level) than if the driver was being pushed with 400 watts. Again this applies to when your really get on the system. I am finding this a little difficult to explain, but hopefully it is making sense. Let me try to use an example: Say you have a driver rated at 500 watts RMS, and you have an amp rated at 100 watts RMS. You could very easily damage the 500 watt driver with only 100 watts of power. This is because you are forcing the amp to work very hard and possibly distorting and damaging the driver.



To answer your question, at low to moderate volumes you probably won't even notice a difference. This is becasue you have adjusted your gains on the amp properly to distrubute the sound (between doors and sub) to what in your opinion is "evenly". Obviously you don't want a ton of bass at a low volume level, otherwise the lyrics will drown out. As I already said, the difference will be in higher volumes only.



I hope that all makes sense.



-Ryan



Just curious what you are running in the doors @ 100 watts a channel.

 

[HEMI®Dart]

Cooker,



I follow what you are saying.



I bought these 6X9 Rockford Fosgate 3 way speakers a couple of months ago when they were on sale. I mounted them in the doors. They are rated for 75 watts RMS, but are doing fine.



Specs: http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-GA2obuC108E/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=10&g=52300&I=575FRC2369&o=P&a=0



In hindsight, I think I could have got a better speaker. They sound good, not great.



The Jesen Tri-axial's at Walmart for 60 bucks a pair sound better.

 

[KennyM]

I miss the good old days, Twelve years ago I used to run a punch 75 at 1 ohm load. I had 3 sets of speakers running off that amp. Never messed with mono.