What sounds better 2 ohm or 4 ohm?

Question

What hits and sounds better?

Answer 1

I didn't read all of M V 's response, but I skimmed it and it seemed pretty good.  Basically 2 or 4 ohm or 1 or 8, doesn't really have anything to do with how a speaker will sound.  Usually, the higher the impedance, the more efficient the speaker will be also, meaning it requires less power to achieve the same amount of perceived volume.  So to answer your question, what sounds better or hits harder, 2 or 4 ohm, neither and/or both.  lol.  That's sorta like asking what's faster, an apple or a orange.

Answer 2

The more ohm, the better the quality, but takes more power to drive. 2ohm speakers are twice as efficient as 4ohm but have worse quality, which is why subs are usually wired to 1ohm or 2ohm, then speakers are 4ohm (in cars anyway). Speakers in your home theater system will be 16ohm in some cases.

Answer 3

^That isn't true^....I will copy and paste an old answer I typed for someone else for you...

I think we need like a newb area in the site, where general information can be found quickly and easily, all bundled in one, so I decided to start by making like a short (you could call it that compared to just going to bcae.com or whatever that site is called) explanation of what ohms are and how they relate to car audio. I call it, the idiots guide to Wiring woofers, and if there are any errors, misleading info, hard to understand info, or anything you want to add, please let me know so I could change it up!

Ohms law is a pretty complicated thing (at least in setups with multiple subs and weird ohm loads), but the basics are easy. Ohm's law is V=IR: Voltage = Current x Resistance.

The lower your impedance (ohms) the more heat will be produced. If an amplifier is stable down to say x ohms, then using ohms law you can wire down your subs to that x or higher and be safe. Subs can either be wired directly to an amp, parallel, or series. Each speaker and subwoofer will specify the speakers impedance, usually either SVC (single voice coil) 2 or 4 ohms, or DVC (dual voice coil) 1 2 or 4 ohms in car audio applications. Home audio speakers tend to yield higher impedance levels. When you wire a system one of the most important things to remember is to make sure the impedance level is not below the level that the amplifier is stable down to, as this will very likely cause failure and a destroyed amplifier.

Determining what impedance lever your amp is seeing is easy. The first thing to do is look at the speakers. They will tell you whether the are DVC or SVC. If they are SVC, and you plan on directly wiring the speaker to the amp (pos sub to pos on amp, and neg sub to neg on amp) then whatever ohm your speakers are will be what your amp sees. Therefore, if you have a single voice coil speaker @ 4ohms (which the manufacturer will tell you what impedance it is) wired directly to it's own amplifier (or amplifier channel), the amplifier will see 4 ohms. If you wish to power 2 of these same subs on the same amp (or channel) then you can wire either parallel (pos sub1 to pos sub2 to amp, neg sub1 to neg sub2 to amp) which cuts the impedance in half to 2 ohms at the amplifier; or series ( negative sub1 to neg at amp, positive sub 1 to neg sub2, pos sub2 to pos amp) which will double the impedance at the amplifier to 8 ohms. If you have dual voice coil, treat the wiring of the second voice coil as that of another woofer. So having two dual voiced coil subs can be wired that same as 4 single voiced coil ones, etc. etc. I find this site to be very helpful in determining impedance when my brain is tired http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/rftech/wo...

So if you want to wire down to the lowest impedance to maximize the amount of watts your amp will put out, simply wire the subs in the correct way to reach that impedance at the amp.

KEEP IN MIND

Don't go lower than the amplifiers advertised stable impedance level!

The amount of watts RMS your amp is advertised to put out at a certain impedance is the TOTAL it will put out, so if you have say 6 subs wired to that impedance, you will divide what is advertised as the RMS by 6. For example, if your speaker is DVC @ 2 ohms, and you are wiring it to one amp using parallel, the impedance will be 1 ohm at the amp. If the amp puts out 1000 watts at one ohm, the speaker will see a total of 1000 watts. Similarly, if you have 2 SVC speakers @ 2 ohms wired parallel to the amp, the impedance at the amp will be 1 ohm and the speakers will see 500 watts each (1000 total).

As the impedance goes lower, the heat gets higher. Therefore, thicker wire must be used to carry the current and guarantee full performance. This page will show you recommended wire thicknesses.

http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/board/i...

When you wire correctly, you will have the ability to guarantee that your speakers are seeing the correct wattage, neither over nor underpowered, which will maximize performance as well as improve the life of your speaker...Happy Wiring!