Two 8 Ohm Speaker Cabinets

Ohms most speakers have an impedance of either 4 8 or 16 ohms ω.

Two 8 ohm speaker cabinets.

Wiring configuration for 4 speakers in series parallel. The most basic cabinet configuration is a single speaker. Two 4 ohm speakers 8 ohm load two 8 ohm speakers 16 ohm load. Or two 8.

Running cabinets in this fashion from one power amp will give you a 2. Remember we said if your amp can t handle a 2 ohm load it could go up in flames. So if you had 2 16ω boxes then you would have a total of 8ω. 1 x 8 ohm speaker 8 ohm load 1x16 ohm speaker 16 ohm load two speakers remember.

For instance two 8 ohm cabinets wired in parallel will have a total impedance of 4 ohms. Two 8ω cabinets both plugged into an amp 4ω load. When playing through multiple speaker cabinets one must remember that this will change the impedance that your amp must compensate for. That s why this is so important.

To give you an example of how confusing this is imagine 2 8 ohm speakers. To wire a 4x12 cabinet in series parallel where four 8 ohm speakers are wired in series parallel equaling a total load of 8 ohms as in the illustration below. Connect positive side of speaker a to positive side of speaker c. Match impedances ohms all speakers in the same box should have the same impedance.

Most amplifiers on the planet can run an 8 ohm load so this is desirable. The 4x12 cabinet is sometimes referred to as a half stack and players routinely connect two of them to a single amp to create a full stack. To simplify parallel wiring pretend your speaker system has a total of 2 speakers with 16 ohms each. It s best to match like cabinets.

A parallel wiring turns those 2 8 ohm speakers into a system of 4 ohms total. In parallel you simply divide the total ohm rating by the number of speakers or speaker boxes. A parallel wiring of 4 16 ohm speakers has a system of 4 ohms total as well. Wiring configuration for 4 speakers in parallel.

To push more air several speakers always of equal impedance can be wired together in a cabinet. A 4x12 cab is typically 16 ohms so when you connect two of them together in parallel the total load becomes 8 ohms. If your amp says it can put out a certain number of watts at 4 ohms you can only. Connect negative side of speaker a to positive side of speaker b.

Two 4 ohm cabinets would have an impedance of 2 ohms.