Thread: 2 channel amp to 4 channel SPs

Really it depends on the amp. Your 2 channel amp may be 2 ohm stereo stable. If so you're golden, you can then parallel both the front and back left speakers and the front and back right speakers giving you a single 2 ohm left speaker load and a 2 ohm right speaker load. If your amp isn't 2 ohm stereo stable, you can run both left speakers in series and both right speakers in series creating an 8 ohm load on each side. This won't hurt the amp any, will usually increase the sound quality as less noise is "transferred" to the speaker, but will decrease the volume quite a bit. The final option is to get a second 2 channel amp and run one amp for the fronts and one amp for the rears. If you do that, you can then make use of surround sound if your audio card supports it.

Originally Posted by Jackso

Really it depends on the amp. Your 2 channel amp may be 2 ohm stereo stable. If so you're golden, you can then parallel both the front and back left speakers and the front and back right speakers giving you a single 2 ohm left speaker load and a 2 ohm right speaker load. If your amp isn't 2 ohm stereo stable, you can run both left speakers in series and both right speakers in series creating an 8 ohm load on each side. This won't hurt the amp any, will usually increase the sound quality as less noise is "transferred" to the speaker, but will decrease the volume quite a bit. The final option is to get a second 2 channel amp and run one amp for the fronts and one amp for the rears. If you do that, you can then make use of surround sound if your audio card supports it.

Yes I can have the second amp (I was about to solder it by myself from TDA2005), but will have only who channels anyway from my PC (I want to use other jacks of onboard sound for other purposes), so anyway i will need to deal with paralelling or serialing these four channels, I'll see today if I can check the speakers.

So no way to measure the ohmage without checking the speakers?

If they're factory car speakers, it's pretty safe to say they're 4 ohms, as that is the "standard" car stereo speaker impedance.

Originally Posted by Jackso

If they're factory car speakers, it's pretty safe to say they're 4 ohms, as that is the "standard" car stereo speaker impedance.

yeah, probably (there are two at the back, two in from doors and two twisters), then if I connect them in series, each channel will have 8 ohm, my HU had two 20watt amps inside, total 40watt, my new amp is 70 watt, so I think more impedance will not hurt too much to the volume, previous volume was Ok for me.

ah, gets a little more tricky if two of the speakers are tweeters. It's possible that you then have six 4 ohm speakers, or you the tweeter and woofer for the front could be 4 ohms total. Most likely the second option but either is possible.