voice coil impedence

[Cliff Younce]

Let me begin by saying i have 2 mismatched L5 12s. One is dual 4ohm and one dual 2ohm. Please help me understand how when i parallel voicecoils, my impedance drops to 1/2. I have been told it should be like 1.5 paralled together and from amp. right now i have them drawing 1 ohm, it just doesnt make sense to me for them to drop to .5. Someone please explain this to me so i can better understand.

[MrSkippyJ]

so you have them both on the same amp?

[3vil]

DO NOT RUN MISMATCHED OHM SUBS ON THE SAME AMP.

Or go ahead and do it, it's not my gear and not my money.

[Soundfreezer79]

You're doing it wrong. Like 3vil above said, this should be avoided. Your amp is not long for this world if that's how your treating it. Suggestion: take the dual 4 ohm sub and parallel those 4 ohm coils to 2 ohms, this will get sufficient power from your amp without hurting it due to operating under a stressful lower ohm load. Most amps, unless they are badass suffer machines and the installer knows what he's doing, will not survive .5 ohm loads for long.

[Triticum Agricolam]

Like others have said, don't run mismatched impedance subs.

There is NO WAY to wire those two subs to the amp and have it be "right". Its NOT POSSIBLE.

Threads like this come up now and then and pretty much every time the OP comes back asking "what if I do this" or "what if I do that". The answer is always the same, not possible.

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

The problem with mismatched voice coils is that in parallel, the one with least resistance will get more power. In series the one with the most resistance will get more power. Not ideal but not the end of the world either. Just set it up based on the one with the most power and the other one will live forever. A box with separate chambers could tolerate this better than a common chamber. If you put all this in parallel it will be somewhere between .5 and 1 ohm. When the woofer with the most power dies, replace it with the same as the other one.

[3vil]

^^^Do not do that^^^

Either get a matching pair of subwoofer, or run just one until you can afford to get a matching pair.

[MrSkippyJ]

How does more resistance = more power?

[Cliff Younce]

DO NOT RUN MISMATCHED OHM SUBS ON THE SAME AMP.

Or go ahead and do it, it's not my gear and not my money.

i am running my dual 4 parallel and my dual 2 only on one coil so they both are at 2, paralleled at amp running 1 ohm

[Jessica]

DO NOT RUN MISMATCHED OHM SUBS ON THE SAME AMP.

Or go ahead and do it, it's not my gear and not my money.

i am running my dual 4 parallel and my dual 2 only on one coil so they both are at 2, paralleled at amp running 1 ohm

it doesnt matter final load, each coil is still a certain resistance, its just in a circuit when you add other coils. The power get distributed to each coil based on its own resistance.

Now i wont say do so it, because you know what? William Gay ran 4 15's with 2 having different coil configs, did 150+ with no wall and has about 200+ trophies.

You decide what you want to do.