impedence and audio amps

[Bdonnell]

I'm looking at installing an amp on my tritoon. I have a pair of bazooka double ended tubbies in the back at 2ohms. In the front I have a pair of Clarion 6inch at what appears to be 4ohms, might be 8ohm.

My question is will I damage an amp running half the channels at 2ohm and the other half at 4-8 ohm? Do I need to add some resistor to match the impedence?

Thanks for any input. I'm in planning stage. Too freaking cold to go visit the boat...

Brian

 

[KD4UPL]

Re: impedence and audio amps

What amp? What impedance is the amp designed for? Some amps will be damaged with 2 ohms regardless of what the other channel is doing. On the other hand, I have a Soundstream amp that will play into .5 ohm loads.

 

[Bdonnell]

Re: impedence and audio amps

That's why I don't know yet. If I need to add resistors to increase impedence that affects the amps I can choose,of course if there is no problem with mixed impedence that changes the choices too..

 

[Bdonnell]

Re: impedence and audio amps

I'm considering this amp.MB Quart NA710.5. Will handle 2ohm 4ohm and has a 5th channel for sub at a later date

 

[gm280]

Re: impedence and audio amps

I'm looking at installing an amp on my tritoon. I have a pair of bazooka double ended tubbies in the back at 2ohms. In the front I have a pair of Clarion 6inch at what appears to be 4ohms, might be 8ohm.

My question is will I damage an amp running half the channels at 2ohm and the other half at 4-8 ohm? Do I need to add some resistor to match the impedence?

Thanks for any input. I'm in planning stage. Too freaking cold to go visit the boat...

Brian

First thing you need to do is look at the amp's specifications. Numbers as wattage output per impedance ohmage. And I would only look for true RMS levels instead of max output for a clean sound. Also check what THD percentages are for those ranges. The lower the THD percentage the better for a clear clean sound. Those numbers will explain what that amp is capable of driving without question. There is a difference between resistance and impedance. With impedance you have capacitor reactance and inductive reactance as well as resistance to deal with. So a speaker's impedance of say 8 ohms is only for a set frequency and not going to be 8 ohms for the entire frequency band. So you have to know the amp's capabilities first. If the amp is capable of driving into 4 ohms, then you can start picking out your speakers to match that capability. Adding resistors to get your needed impedance requirements is not as simple as adding a resistor. What wattage is that resistor going to be. Large wattage amps could mean really large wattage resistors and would not allow the amp to produce the sound pressure levels that you bought all that equipment for in the first place. You will burn a lot of wattage up (in the tune of heat dissipation) that would be sound levels otherwise. So try to match the amp AND speakers to each other and forget adding any resistance to accomplish basically nothing... JMHO!

 

[Slide]

Re: impedence and audio amps

If the amp is rated down to 2 ohms, it will not damage the amp to run some channels at 2 and some at 4. Check your user manual to be sure that's not a problem with your particular amp.

Don't mess with adding resistors - buy an amp that suits the equipment you have. Also I highly doubt your Clarions are 8ohm speakers, the vast majority of car/boat speakers are 4ohm. 8ohm is more common in home audio equipment.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: impedence and audio amps

Hook it all up and see how it is adjusting balance with your stereo head fader. If you can't balance it, then you can put variable attenuators on the line input to the loudest channel. Not all speakers have the same efficiency and different speakers sound output will be different than others with the same amount of power driving it.