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Speakers in series

BobbyN

BobbyN

Well-Known Member
Has anyone ever hooked up 2 speakers in series?
If so, do you have an opinion on sound? In other words, two identical speakers on one channel wired in series vs just one.

The reason I have this thought is, my speakers are 4 ohms, my amp is rated to use a minimum of 4 ohm speakers. With two speakers in series I can run two speakers at the same time on each channel. This way the amp will "see" 8 ohms. But I'm curious about your opinions on the sound from those that have tried it.

Thanks for reading.
 
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Well the amplifier will loose control of the woofers because the damping factor will now be zero. Some speakers gain a bit in dynamics as they over shoot the signal. Unless the speakers are very close to each other there will be a slight time shift between the two. If you are after low extended bass just forget it. It won't happen. Very high frequencies might be compromised, also. Remember you will be dropping the out put levels by 6db because you are dividing the voltage in half.
 
It should work. Every amp will drive 8 ohms. Try it and see. Interested to hear how it goes.
 
Many vintage low priced amps and receivers would put speaker A and B in series when enabling both at once, to protect the output section, and I wouldn't do it for serious listening (consider that the signal for each speaker has to go through other's crossover). However, I have done it with decent results when wiring two identical pairs of outdoor speakers at opposite ends of a pool enclosure.
 
twiiii said:
Well the amplifier will loose control of the woofers because the damping factor will now be zero. Some speakers gain a bit in dynamics as they over shoot the signal.
Click to expand...
Is this always true? Many dual-woofer speakers wire the woofers in series. Wouldn't that apply then as well?
 
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Do you think the above McIntosh 70 driver speakers have any in Series?
 
If the speakers are identical, then series wiring is fine. If they are different, then the impedance curve of each speaker will affect the other, resulting in undesirable effects on frequency response.
 
Series wiring is generally discouraged. That said, I'm using an extremely crazy combination of series and parallel (8 speakers in total, internally containing 16 woofers & 8 tweeters :eek: plus 4 external supertweeters :eek::eek:) out of necessity for the center channel in my basement where I have a totally hidden 5.1 system and I need several small speakers that fit in the joists to make up the center speaker, and also multiple speakers for distribution across the room given the interference with the joists. It's a very crazy setup, calculated impedance is 6 ohms and I'm very happy with the sound in that system. As a center speaker, it's much more difficult to assess the quality of sound from series wiring versus using them left/right in a stereo pair, but that crazy center setup works great in movies. I need to run REW to see what it looks like -- just haven't had time and I'm a little scared what I'll find :eek:.

I can't add much to this discussion because my center channel use is extremely unscientific in terms of results, but hoping others will chime in on what they found real-world with speakers in series.
 
All of Rogers designs were in Parallel I think. My concert Grands were a special variation of series parallel. So if one woofer failed the other three would keep working. But I rewired them all in parallel and the bass was extended and became more efficient. Neither my 7200's, MC 206 or MC 207's have had issues pushing 2 ohms. but only for 2 channels with crossover at 250 HZ as the system was tri-amped. the XR 290 the woofers were in series parallel.. I don't know what the K series of speakers with multiple woofers do. Altec made special diaphragms and woofers with 32 ohm impedance for their very large Movie theater Speaker systems with 4 515's in parallel back in the days of tube only. I know when driving the big EV sub woofers in discos if we wired them in series to keep the QSC amps from over stressing the bass performance fell off around 45 HZ and the levels dropped. So we ended up having to add another stereo amp to push the subs which reached down to the mid twenty hertz range . Each box could handle 500 watts RMS. Same thing for Altec and JBL subs.
 
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Thanks for the responses guys. All my speakers are identical. I do realize the power would be distributed between the two. I never tried it but had wondered how the
actual sound would be. Less power going to each speaker but double the amount of speakers so. Now we're talking acoustics.

Interesting how twiiii said the bass fell off around 45 hz when wired in series and the others he wired in parallel the bass was extended.
 
bowtie427ss said:
Drivers in series compared to speaker systems in series is like comparing apples to lug nuts.
Click to expand...

While Normally I like to be a Shitte stirrer,
and also to encourage lots of experienced
comments, This time it was for info.
A good friend of mine just bought through my Encouragement
a Pair of Alon 4's.Speakers.
He loves them with his Cary sla-80 tube amp.
But another pair of 4's came up for a good price.
I said great use them for your home theater Mid level Marantz AV Receiver.
Well the Alons dip below 4 Ohms, and the Marantz gets hot and starts distorting
at moderate levels.
So the Op's orig Question is relevant, as can he use his pair of Klipsch, whatevers
in Series with the Alon 4's?
 
Nyjblbob said:
So the Op's orig Question is relevant, as can he use his pair of Klipsch, whatevers
in Series with the Alon 4's?
Click to expand...
He can have one pair of speakers that sound their best within the constraints of his system, or he can have two or more pairs with compromised(significantly?) sound. ;)

There is nothing to be gained in terms of sound quality by wiring multiple crossovers in series.
 
Running a speaker SYSTEM (multiple drivers, xover etc) in series with another is not a good idea.

Running individual drivers within a speaker system in series can work well if done correctly.
 
There is no reason to believe without evidence that there will be s problem IMO. I did not do well in physics so figuring out e0 at the amp terminals is not in the cards for me.

An EPI-style 1 capacitor xover will sound fine I suspect.

Is there no BSEE out there that can state what the electronic effect will be?
 
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