When connecting two LF drivers for a 8 ohm load, is there any advantages/differences in choosing 2x 4ohm in series or 2x 16ohms in parallell?
Series or parallel connection
- Thread starter Helge A. Bentsen
- Start date
Connecting in parallel will not result in complete silence if one driver fails!
16 ohm drivers are fairly rare beasts so this might ultimately drive your decision.
16 ohm drivers are fairly rare beasts so this might ultimately drive your decision.
I had a single driver wedge that failed. I had an older spare, but it had a 16 Ohm driver, a Celestion, and I was concerned there would be a difference in sound. In the end I bought a new monitor with the right driver. The only difference when I used the two one day as a makeshift PA was a tiny difference in volume. I assumed I’d be able to tell the difference and there would be maybe a duller one or a brighter one, but it was just volume. For me, it meant that parallel connection became the norm as long as the amp could handle the load.
For compression drivers with small, light moving mass no, it doesn't really matter. As driver size and moving mass goes up then series connection means both drivers are built out from the very low driving impedance of the amp by an 8 ohm ( or what ever impedance driver ) voice coil thus reducing damping. The more power you want to transfer to a large, high power driver particularly at lower frequencies the more low series impedance you want that path to be. This is a big part of why each driver in dual driver subs are often brought out on separate connector pins.
Riley, I almost posted a very similar answer regarding this resistance seen by each series connected driver but bottled out at the last minute, as I remain unsure whether or not back EMF nullifies this problem. Your thoughts?