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by Anonymous on April 4th, 2007

Anonymous

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My vintage delco radio says it must have an impedance load of 8-10 ohms.my 4 spkrs. are all 4 ohms.i can wire two speakers in series (8 ohms) and 2 speakers in parallel (2 ohms) to get 10 ohms but can i wire all 4 in series(16 ohms) w/o harming radio?

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Answers. 3 helpful answers below.

  • by RedJohn on April 7th, 2007

    RedJohn

    You should not have any problems driving four speakers in series, although there are a couple of factors to consider:
    - A speaker is not a simple resistive load.
    - The rated impedance of a speaker is a nominal value.

    A speaker can be assumed to operate within a couple of ohms of its rated impedance, over at least half of its frequency range. An 8-ohm speaker, for example, may have an impedance that dips to 3 or 4 ohms and rises to 40 or 50 ohms. This is caused by the capacitive and inductive reactances introduced into the circuit by the crossover (capacitors, inductors) and the speaker's voice coil (inductor), plus the effects of the enclosure compliance. It is always safer to run speakers in series, rather than in parallel, since the dips in the actual impedance can be a problem when speakers are paralleled.

    As you add more speakers to the circuit, the amplifier will eventually have difficulty providing sufficient current to drive them. This will produce higher distortion levels from the amplifier - the reason most speakers are “blown”. This is more of a problem with solid-state amplifiers, which clip the output signal when driven above their design limit. Tube amplifiers compress the output signal to some extent before it is clipped.

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  • by scooby doo on December 5th, 2009

    scooby doo

    Two 4 ohms wired in series (8 ohms) will suffice electrically but why go to all that bother when you can buy ONE reproduction 8 ohm speakers here?
    www turnswitch DOT com

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  • by drogers47 on July 10th, 2008

    drogers47

    I once faced a similar situation... My stereo expected 8 ohm speakers, but I wanted it to drive the built-in ceiling speakers throughout my newly purchased home. They had been professionally wired together and balanced, but presented an impedance around 3.7 ohms.

    My solution (which I checked with an audio pro first) was to wire a resistor in series with *one* of the speaker leads. The "resistor" I used was actually a pair of hefty, ceramic 10-ohm 10-watt resistors wired together in parallel.

    I did that on each output channel of the stereo. Hence a total of four 10-ohn resistors, wired into two pairs each yielding 4 ohms at 20 watts.

    That gave me plenty of room for the current output from a 2×40 watt stereo. The ceiling speakers sounded great, the amp was set to a modest volume, and the resistors were just comfortably warm to the touch, not hot.

    The point: you can raise the impedance of a speakers a few ohms by placing one (beefy) resistor between it and the stereo.

    The previous answer is correct -- speaker loads are not "straight" resistance. But my experience is that if you are not fancy, you can use simple means to fiddle with a simple resistance.

    The above does not involve stringing the speakers together — with that I have no experience. Can your setup wire just one speaker to each output that way, using a resistor to up the impedance on that speaker?

    With that between the

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You're reading My vintage delco radio says it must have an impedance load of 8-10 ohms.my 4 spkrs. are all 4 ohms.i can wire two speakers in series (8 ohms) and 2 speakers in parallel (2 ohms) to get 10 ohms but can i wire all 4 in series(16 ohms) w/o harming radio?

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