Amp & sub wiring

If you run one sub with the DVCs in parallel, you would get 2 ohms. If you run both subs with all DVCs in parallel, you would get 1 ohm.
If you run both subs with DVCs in parallel and subs in series, you would get 4 ohms.
If you run both subs with DVCs in series and subs in parallel, you would get 4 ohms.
If you run one sub DVCs in series and the other sub DVCs in parallel and both subs in parallel, you would get 1.6 ohms but the subs would not be balanced.
If you run both subs on only one coil and the subs in parallel, you would get 2 ohms (but only if the individual coils are rated for the full power)

I am assuming these are subs, you didnt say, but that is my guess. do you want bass, or do you want to take it easy on your amp? do you have a terminal cup on your sub box, or just wires going into the box to the speakers? take it easy route: wire positive from amp to positive of one speaker, negative of amp to negative of the other speaker, with a jumper wire connecting the negative of the first speaker, to the positive of the second.
more bass route: run seperate positive and negative wires to each speaker, making sure to maintain proper polarity.

That amplifier is only rated at 150 watts at 4 ohms, or 300 watts at 2 ohms. Not a very strong amp to run 2 kicker comps. My guess is you have the subs wired wrong for your application. There are 2 types of subs, one is a dual 4 ohm, and one is a dual 2 ohm. Most people bridge these coils together and that cuts your ohms in half. For example. Lets say you have the 10cvr104 subs. Thats the dual 4 ohm sub. You wire the coils together in parallel, now its a 2 ohm sub. You have 2 of these subs running off of your amp, if they are hooked up in parallel, now you have a 1 ohm load, out of the amplifiers normal operation. Your amplifiers internals heat up really quick and there is a thermal overload, putting your amplifier into circuit protection mode. My suggestion for wiring your subs is as follows: for each speaker, wire the coils together like this- positive coil1 to negative coil 2 and negative coil 1 to positive coil 2. That is called running in series, and doubles your ohm load. Next, we need to wire the speakers together properly to hook up to your amplifier. For this, since the coils are hooked together, you only need to use one set of terminals from each sub. And take the positive from sub 1 and hook it to positive of amp. Take negative sub 1 and hook it to positive of sub 2. Take negative of sub 2 and hook it to negative of amp.

That's dependent on your subwoofers. You will need 2 dual 4 ohm subs wired in Parallel, a single dual 2 ohm subwoofer wired in parallel, a single dual .5 ohm wired in series. Or something similar.

http://www.bcae1.com/spkrmlti.htm

Assuming that when you say 2ohm you mean that both coils on the subs are 2ohm. If this is true then wire the individual subs in series to make 3 4ohm subs, then wire 'em all together in parallel to your amp so your amp will run at 1.333 ohms, and your subs will see about 400watts rms a piece, because wiring it at 1.333 ohms reduce output by about 20% but this is the best you're gonna get w/o going under amp's stability which is highly unrecommended. Besides those puppies'll still slam hard! Hope this helps...

First off excellent choice on audio equipment, i guarantee you won't be disappointed. So your subs are dual coil 2 ohms. So wire each individual sub in series. If you don't know what this means i'll explain. On each sub there are 2 sets of wire terminals. Connect a wire from the one set's - to the other set's +. Do this on both subs and you will have the coils wired in series making each sub 4ohms. Now to hook the subs together you'll need to wire them in parallel. Now since you have your coils in series, on each sub you have one + terminal and one - terminal left. So run a wire from the + terminal remaining on each sub, and run them to your amp. Splice the ends of the two wires together and plug them into the + speaker output of the amp. Connect the two negatives in the same way and plug them into the - port on the amp. You will now have your amp running at its desired 2ohms. When wiring this disconnect the fuse on your amp power wire to avoid short problems. And if you get confused at all, and aren't sure what to do, ask again don't guess, if its done wrong you could severely damage your equipment. Hope this helped, enjoy the bass...

Hello mikey4569mky,

Unless your amp is stable below 1 ohm, there's really only one wiring solution. And that is to series the voice coils making each sub 8 ohms, then parallel all 3 subs to the amp for a 2.67 ohm load. If you parallel the voice coils and then parallel the subs, the impedance will be 0.67 ohms, much too low for most amps.

You could parallel the voice coils and then series the subs for a 6 ohm load, but the amp won't put as many watts into a 6 ohm load. Most are optimized for 4 ohms or 2 ohms. And it's not good to run subs in series anyway.

Here's the wiring diagram.

Hope this helps.

Hello brianmitchel,

From what I am able to determine, the Orion HCCA250 is a bridgeable 2-channel amp that is stable to 1ohm when bridged and outputs 800 watts RMS into that load.

The JL W6's in both 10" and 12" versions are dual voice coil with 4ohm coils so they can be wired to present either an 8ohm load (series) or a 2ohm load (parallel). They can handle 600 watts RMS.

With this combination, the best configuration would be to wire the sub voice coils in parallel for a 2ohm load and then parallel both subs to the amp bridged terminals for a final impedance of 1ohm. The subs will each be getting 400 watts.

In any event, I would not recommend running subs in series. There is some evidence for distortion being caused by something termed "back EMF".

Hope this helps.

Sounds like the two subs wired together might be too much of a load on the amp and it is shutting off. Try wiring the two subs in series. That will reduce the load on the amp but will conversely put out less power. Less is better than none though. In any case check your amp to see what the lowest ohm rating it can see, that ohm rating is where you want your subs and if faced with a choice of either going under (lower numerically) or over (higher numerically) GO OVER!-it is much safer.
Here's an article I wrote that can help explain how to wire the subs to the amp.

OHM LOADS, SUB WIRING, OHM RELATED POWER OUTPUT

SERIES SUBWOOFER WIRING
Wire the positive pole from one voice coil (using wire that is as thick or thicker than your wire from amp to sub) to the negative pole of the other voice coil (on the same sub). This will leave you with a positive pole from one voice coil and a negative pole from the other giving you the two leads that will be hooked up to the amplifier or other subs. When wiring in series, the ohms will go up numerically, and the load on the amp will go down. Almost all amplifiers power output will follow this rule, except some amps such as JL Audio's “Ohm matching” D Class amps.

PARALLEL SUBWOOFER WIRING
Wire the positive pole from one voice coil (using wire that is as thick or thicker than your wire from amp to sub) to the positive pole of the other voice coil (on the same sub). Then wire the negative to the negative in the same way. You can then wire to the amp or other subs. When wiring in parallel the ohms will go down numerically, and the load on the amp will go up. Almost all amplifiers power output will follow this rule, except some amps such as JL Audio's “Ohm matching” D Class amps.

MULTIPLE SUBS USING SERIES AND PARALLEL WIRING
In order to match your amplifiers ohm rating you can use parallel and series wiring together, just keep things even for power distribution and to avoid phase issues.
Example: I have two “Type X 12” subs” that have dual 2ohm voice coils and have to match my “Amplifier X” ohm rating of 2ohms mono. In this case, I would wire each subwoofer in series (giving me a 4ohm load), and then wire the two subs in parallel to get my 2ohm mono load. When wiring multiple subs just, treat each sub as a voice coil and wire accordingly.

POWER OUTPUT AND OHM LOADS
For example if “Amplifier X” can make 100watts@8ohms, it would make 200watts@4ohms and 400watts@2ohms. However with every drop in ohms the amplifier is put under more pressure. It starts to create a lot of heat, distortion figures begin to climb, damping rates drop, and some amps even throw power spikes when clipping. SO BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR AMPS RATING AND DO NOT EXCEED IT!

-Dynami

The easiest way to think of wiring voice coils and subs is this:

• Two items of the same impedance in parallel = Half of the impedance
• 4 ohms in parallel with 4 ohms = 2 ohms
• 8 ohms in parallel with 8 ohms = 4 ohms
• Two items of the same impedance in series = Double the impedance
• 4 ohms in series with 4 ohms = 8 ohms
• 8 ohms in series with 8 ohms = 16 ohms

In this case, you want to wire two subs, each with dual 4 ohms voice coils, so that the total equals 2 ohms. Your options are:

• DVCs in parallel, 2 subs in series = 4 ohms
• DVCs in series, 2 subs in parallel = 4 ohms
• DVCs in parallel, 1 sub = 2 ohms

With two, dual 4 ohm subs, you can only have 1 ohm or 4 ohm total impedance.