2 ohm stable residential stereo amp?

Lee Douglas

Sophomore
Jan 15, 2011
183
0
16
Northwest
The title pretty much sums it up. My client decided to add another pair of speakers to his deck on his own, ran the wire himself back to the in-wall control box which we just happened to pass through with a 16/4 feed to the amps. Now I hafta make it work... Don't need a lot of watts (residential) and an auto-on with signal would be really handy. Had I not already purchased one pair of 4 ohm outdoor speakers I'd get two pair of 8 ohm speakers,or I'd be looking (and may still have to go) in that direction. A new wire is not practical or even possible, which precludes the idea of a four channel amp. Any suggestions for a suitable amp?
 
Re: 2 ohm stable residential stereo amp?

Interesting. So hook the speakers up to 2 ohms and common terminal and the amp up to 8 or 4 ohm and common? A pair for stereo. Is there any significant loss to take into consideration?

I'll Google later myself, but do you know of a finished "box" with a stereo pair ready to go? Thanks for the suggestion.

OR I could just series them to 8 ohms for each stereo side. That sounds under budget even!
 
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Re: 2 ohm stable residential stereo amp?

The "auto-match" transformers may be too professional of a fix ($$), but would be ideal.

"IF" you can live with both speakers being on at the same time and the christmas tree light wiring, that means one bad speakers kills sound from both, wire them in series.

The easy option is just leave them in parallel and let it fry. The amp will not current limit at low/moderate levels. That said if the customer tries to play it loud, the amp can current limit, and can overheat. If the amp is well designed it will only thermal off, if not well designed it could fail prematurely. If you don't trust the owner to be disciplined about the volume control, wiring them in series will be kinder to the amp.

JR
 
Re: 2 ohm stable residential stereo amp?

Thanks for the help/suggestions. I really don't know why I keep letting myself get dragged kicking and screaming back into residential projects, but anyway... The two pair of speakers are basically in the same outdoor area in a large yard and on the lake. They are going to get pushed pretty hard and it's a three hour drive to the site. And because I've got to use an outboard amp on this zone anyway (digital card amps in a multi-zone box don't like weird loads I've found out), I'm going to series and up-size the amp a bit. Thanks again.