Rep Power: 0

ive had my civic for about 5 months now and the stock stereo is alright but i want something more powerful. ive been looking at subs for the past few weeks or so. ive come across a few things that i would like to get answered. whats the difference between 2 and 4-ohm subs? also i was wondering whats the difference between component and voice coil over subs? if any one could help me it would be most appreciated.

 
Rep Power: 0

Ohms is a measure of the resistance of a speaker.

Speakers

• made at certain ohms an that can't change

Amps

• made to handle speakers of certain ohms
• put out different amounts of power based on the ohms
• when bridged usually require higher ohm loads

Wiring

• hooking up multiple subs together
• changes the overall ohm load at the amp, not the speaker
• wiring can be series, parallel, or combo of both

Subs can be SVC or DVC. Thats single voice coil and dual voice coil. This refers to the number of hookups on the sub itself. There is even some subs that are quad voice coil that have 4 hookups although these are not ver common. Mostly this is done for wiring reasons. It gives you more wiring options. All coils must be hooked up for proper operation. Take a typical DVC 4 ohm sub. It has two 4 ohm coils. Wired in parallel the sub acts like one 2 ohm sub, wired in series it acts like one 8 ohm sub.

For regular speakers you have coaxial or components. The "way" part of the speaker describes how many speakers there are. In a 3-way you have a mid w/ 2 small tweeters.

Coaxials have the mids and tweets connected to one another in a fixed position.


Components have a tweeter that is repositionable somewhere else. They usually have a crossover also to split the sound going to the mid or the repositioned tweeter.

 
Rep Power: 348

Probably the best upgrade is speakers in teh doors and a nice head unit.

Component are speakers with separate mids and high, the tweeter is separate and mountable anywhere, typically in your door panel or the sail panel. That is compared to non components [coaxials] that have the tweeter mounted with the midwoofer. Components have the potential for better sound and imaging, but there are some nice coaxials out there as well, and they typically require more power and installation with the crossovers to install too.

the voice coils and different impedences are mostly there to allow different wiring combinations. For example, if you have an amplifier that puts out 50 watts at 4 ohms, and 100 watts at 2 ohms, you can get 100 watts if you have a 2 ohm speaker vs. a 4 ohm speaker.

some speakers have pultiple voice coils, again to wire an optimal impedence load. Say, you have a dual 2-ohm speaker, you can wire the speaker in two ways, in parallel, you're overall impedence would be 1 ohm, in series, you're overall impedence would be 4 ohms. If you have multiple speakers, the different combinations increase even more. the goal is to math the overall impedence load as close to the target power output of the amplifier [typically where it makes the most power]

Ed

 
Rep Power: 348

FINE! you answer him with your pretty pictures.

 
Rep Power: 0

^ damn nice detail.

 
Rep Power: 0

thx for all the help. i just have a few more questions about subs though. im looking at a kicker L5 and it says its rms is 50-450w and its peak is 900 watts. i understand for the most part all of that but i was wondering what does rms really mean. and if i did get this sub how big of an amp would i need. and if i got two do i need to upgrade to a bigger amp. thx for all the help

 
Rep Power: 0

sry if the names confuses you. i forgot my old login name and i made a new one but now i found it so im the samer person as mwvarsity65

 
Rep Power: 0

ya, get headunit first, then upgrade speakers

 
Rep Power: 348

You'll need an amplifier that puts out about the required wattage. RMS stands for root mean square, approximately an average of the power. If you add another subwoofer, you'll need to get another amplifier. If you plan on getting another, you might as well get a more powerful amplifier first, one that can handle two subs.

 
Rep Power: 0

Power ratings ....

Amp

• rms - the amount of power it can output all day long w/o overheating
• max - the amout of power it can output in short bursts only

Speakers

• rms - the amount of power it can handle all day long w/o overheating
• max - the amout of power it can handle in short bursts only

Now a speaker outputs an amount of sound measured in db's based on the amount of power than it is fed from the amp. This is constantly changing in proportion to the music and where the volume **** is set. Generally this is very little power, say under 20 watts even w/ subs.

All speakers have a sensetivity rating that is given in db. This is a lab number that will give you an idea of the subs performance. A typical sub will be around 88db or so. What that means is, the sub when tested, was 88db loud from 1 meter away when the amp gave it 1 watt of power. Now power is a logrithmic scale, so every double of power gets you 3 more db.

Something like this:

• 1 watt = 88db
• 2 watts = 91db
• 4 watts = 94db
• 8 watts = 97db
• 16 watts = 100db
• 32 watts = 103db
• 64 watts = 106db
• 128 watts = 109db
• 256 watts = 112db
• 512 watts = 115db

So the answer is you can power a sub w/ low amounts of power and it will still play fine. The only thing more power will get you is more volume.

 
Rep Power: 0

thx for all ur help. i found some kicker solo-baric L5s for 100. would i need to get two amps to power the both of them. and what amp would you recommend for a decent price. i dont have a ton to spend on them.

 
Rep Power: 0

also what kind of box would i need to run the kicker L5s to get the best sound. they are 10s