super newbie ohm question

[bigcam112 0]

Hi, i new to the forums and would for my first post to ask something that even after being around car stereo often i still dont understand.... which is Ohms... say i have a subwoofer that i run at 2ohms with a amp that can run 1000 watts at 2ohms... then i have the same subwoofer that i am running at 1ohm and a amp with 1000 watts running at 1ohm... just the change in ohm with no change to either the sub or amp will the sound be any different or would it be the same? any input helps thanks in advance!

[Acidburn 10]

nope, shouldn't hear any difference

[bigcam112 0]

so if thats the case why do people go lower and lower in ohms? which is i guess "better"?

[cx-7heaven 7]

Ok, with your scenario, the only thing that would change is efficiency of your amp, and current draw. Here is why people go to very low ohms: Say you have a 2 ohm sub, 1000 rms rating and an amp that does 1000 at 2. You decide later on that you want more bass, so you add another sub. That gives you a 1 ohm load for your amp to drive. Hopefully, your amp would be 1 ohm stable at this point. The perfect amp would double it's power every time you cut the ohm load in half. So the same amp that was doing 1000@2 will do 2000@1. Twice the power, twice the sub=more bass!

[Acidburn 10]

so if thats the case why do people go lower and lower in ohms? which is i guess "better"?

because there's more power to be had at lower ohm levels

[sqguy 0]

Ohms is just a measurement of resistance, how much the wire in the speaker restricts the current the amp puts through it. An amp needs a certain amount of resistance or too much current will go through it and burn it up. Some amps can flow current to 4 ohms, some more current for 2 or 1 or some even go lower. An amp is usually optimized to work best and be most efficient at a certain ohm load, what it is rated at. It may be able to run less or might not. You can always run more load and get less power, the amp will not work as hard. Its kind of like a garden hose, the larger the hole in the nozzle the more water comes out and someplace a pump runs harder to pump more water to you. If you let too much out with an amp it will burn up (like shorting the speaker terminals), some can take the abuse and some can't. Some can for a burp. Also your sub can have different ohm load at different frequency, this is why some in competition can run 1/4ohm because they are doing SPL at a frequency the sub setup has more resistance at then what the overall ohms is for that driver. The amp might be seeing 2 ohms in actual use at just that particular frequency. If you run half the ohms you can get up to double the power, that is why everyone runs low as they can. Right, a X watt 2 ohm rated amp running at 2 ohms is pretty much the same as a 4 ohm amp running at 4 ohms....each should be designed to run at their respective ohm load. Soundstreams even have switches to drop the ohm load in half if you want to run them that way, but they usually put out the same watts at the lower ohms that way.

[bigcam112 0]

ok gotcha.. thanks for making it a whole lot easier!