Kappas (2ohm) in dash - breakup problems

[Starkbier]

well I was concerned about putting a 2ohm speaker in the dash since the doors are wired in parallel and sure enough, Im getting some horrible breakup/distortion from them (not even close to full vol too). Only change to the FJammer/6 speaker setup was the addition of the 3.5" Kappas in dash. I noted that the cheapo stocks were 8 ohms.... so I guess my best short term workaround is to add some inline resistors (2 ohm) to the Kappas and see how that works.

Was hoping to come up with something adequate to upgrade the FJammer but its looking more and more like a full amp/speaker/HU upgrade. At least I have most of that sitting in the corner already from previous installs.

Its a real shame Toyo went so low end with this. This and the lack of rear windows opening (the rear ports should be electronically controlled IMO) are my only complaints so far though.

Cheers,

Starkbier

[1 Bored Clerk]

Are 8-ohm speakers hard to find or is there supposed to be an advantage to 2 ohm speakers? I don't really know much about it, but I probably would replace them with speakers that are the same ohm rating as what came out. Is that a wrong assumption to make?

Seriously, it's been years since I've messed with stereo stuff...and I didn't know much back then either. Feel free to ignore this post and go on about your business.

[V4mp]

1 Bored Clerk previously said:

Are 8-ohm speakers hard to find or is there supposed to be an advantage to 2 ohm speakers? I don't really know much about it, but I probably would replace them with speakers that are the same ohm rating as what came out. Is that a wrong assumption to make?

Seriously, it's been years since I've messed with stereo stuff...and I didn't know much back then either. Feel free to ignore this post and go on about your business.

Well the lower the ohms the more current you can push accros the coils of the speaker V=IR where V is volts I are amps(current) and r is resitance. so you would think the lower the better right?, this is not always right it means louder, but it also means that you stress the amp more(heat,power) and make alot of built in electronics designed to make things sound better(in simple terms) not work nearly as well, so basically low impedance(ohms) means loud but usualy not super good sound quality, unless both the speaker, amp, and lines are meant for it. Higher impedance means its gunna not be as loud but will most likely sound better.

[V4mp]

Starkbier previously said:

well I was concerned about putting a 2ohm speaker in the dash since the doors are wired in parallel and sure enough, Im getting some horrible breakup/distortion from them (not even close to full vol too). Only change to the FJammer/6 speaker setup was the addition of the 3.5" Kappas in dash. I noted that the cheapo stocks were 8 ohms.... so I guess my best short term workaround is to add some inline resistors (2 ohm) to the Kappas and see how that works.

Was hoping to come up with something adequate to upgrade the FJammer but its looking more and more like a full amp/speaker/HU upgrade. At least I have most of that sitting in the corner already from previous installs.

Its a real shame Toyo went so low end with this. This and the lack of rear windows opening (the rear ports should be electronically controlled IMO) are my only complaints so far though.

Cheers,

Starkbier

i would also be worried that if its in parallel as you say that with a 2 ohm and a 8 ohm resistor you are running that channal of the amp down to 8/5 ohms or roughly 1.6 ish which is not good at all for an amp and can fry/overheat an amp not designed for it. Im very surprised you havent cooked it already.

[Starkbier]

V4mp previously said:

i would also be worried that if its in parallel as you say that with a 2 ohm and a 8 ohm resistor you are running that channal of the amp down to 8/5 ohms or roughly 1.6 ish which is not good at all for an amp and can fry/overheat an amp not designed for it. Im very surprised you havent cooked it already.

its actually worse than that, the doors are supposed to be 4ohm based on posts to this forum, so Im probably really stressing the tiny op amps in the output stage of the FJammer.

Plus, now the lower impedence throws the balance off between doors and front tweets so the highs are too high. Simple solution is to fade back and also drop in a 4-6 ohm pad resistor inline tonight and see how that works. Good thing I have lots of toys lying around from speaker building.

Also, impedence is frequency dependent, so its really a misnomer to say speaker A is 8 ohm and speaker B is 4 ohm. You really need a graph of the entire frequency response versus impedence to know if you have a problem with the amp output stage. Its common for a 4 ohm speaker to dip below 2 in certain freq bands.

Hey, the worst that could happen is I blow the FJammer and have to drop in the Kenwood Excelon gathering dust in the corner! Just wanted to put off the major amp/HU wiring that will surely lead to something more like my 1kW system in my Mazda

Update:

All is well. Tried two diff solutions, first a 5ohm inline resistor which worked but padded the sound too much. Then dropped in a 2ohm, 15W, sandcast resistor I had from a previous project and that sounded real nice and balanced OK with the stock doors. Full volume and no breakup/popping. So if anyone is thinking of going 2ohms in the dash, just be sure to get some resistors to pad down impedence seen by the FJammer. Just solder it inline on the positive feed between the FJammer output and the crossover input.

[jt's cruiser]

Standard speakers for the car are 4Ohm unlike home speakers that are 8Ohm, some sub will vary, and usually run at 2-4Ohms.

The main issue with speaker resistance in the car is that as you reduce the "Ohms" you are reducing resistance, increasing power and distortion. The other issue is that many speakers vary, you can have a 2Ohm speaker that is actually a 1.6Ohm speaker.

There is a real danger to your system by reducing resistance too much, as it will introduce a significant amount of distortion, hurt your speakers, and make your headunit or amp work much harder than they have to and lead to damage to the system.