I suppose this will seem a real noob question to most of you, but I'm confused by the specs on some speakers I bought. They're Focal 13KS small "subs" -- quotes because I don't really consider a 5" speaker a sub even though that's what Focal calls them. I have a component set for the doors and plan to pair these "subs" with some tweets in the rear.

Anyway, here's the bit that confuses me. The specs say the nominal impedance is 8 ohms. I've seen 4 and 2 but never 8. Does this seem odd? Are there amps out there that'll drive at 8 ohms?

tia

 

I'd have to guess that you are under thirty! There was a time when you couldn't get ANY speaker other than 8 ohms without paying an arm and a leg at some audiofile store....

The key to power delivery is to match the output impedance of the amp with the impedence of the speaker. This maximized power delivery to the speaker.

But in general, you won't have trouble driving higher impedance speakers, as they take less current at a given voltage. Where you get into trouble is running to low an impedance for a given amp, and all the power is left in the amp, and it cooks.

One nice feature of 8 ohm speakers is you can put two in parallel and have a poor mans 4 ohm dual cone!

Matt

 

Under 30.....ha! Thanks, but I've been around a bit longer than that.....about to retire from the Air Force. I didn't mess much with this kind of thing "way back then," but I only remember playing with 4 and 2 ohm speakers in the 70s.

Anyway, what you say still leaves me confused. You used to have to pay extra for lower impedance, but we're no longer "back in the day" and these are high end speakers.....seems like conflicting thoughts to me.

So, I don't have to search for an amp that lists 8 ohm options among its specs?

 

and have at it. If you're building a high-end system, talk to someone at a car stereo store. If you run some 8 ohm and some 4 ohm, you'll run into issues with haveing to play with the fader and the like.

But 8 ohms won't cook your amp.

Matt