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Can i run two speakers off one channel?

y5mgisi

y5mgisi

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I would like to put two more small speakers in the center speaker location in the dash of my 90. So i would have a total of 4 speakers in the dash, and two more speakers in the normal rear location.

So can i just wire up the two left dash speakers on the "LF" outlet of the stereo? And same for the right? Or will it just not work out without an amp?
 
It'll work just fine.
You aren't running competition grade speakers at a high wattage so it won't be an issue at all.
 
Worst case, if you managed to overload it (which you won't) is you pop the fuse in the back of the head unit.
 
y5mgisi said:
I just wondered if there would be an ohms problem.
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Assuming 4 ohm speakers, adding the 2nd speaker to the channel drops the impedance to 2 ohms. You should be fine.
 
depends on how you wire them, in series doubles ohms, in parallel splits your ohms in half.
 
If you were talking high wattage subwoofers and amplifiers then you have to worry about ohms, but running low wattage, it won't be an issue.

The way that works; as best I can remember from back when I did competition stereos so this could be wrong, was if your amp has 2-8 ohm speakers on one channel parallel is like 1-4 ohm speaker to the amp. Wire them in series and it would be like having a 16 ohm speaker.

So if you have have high dollar stuff it can matter but with your average walmart speakers and head unit for average volume levels it's not that big of a deal most of the time.
 
When wiring 2 4ohm speakers in parallel, the effective resistance is 2ohms. That will probably give your stock stereo problems or damage it. Also the volume will increase because of the lower impedance.
Wiring 2 4ohm speakers in series will give an effective resistance of 8ohms, but the volume will be lower because of lower power output.
Also, it sounds like you'll be using different type speakers to do this (probably different efficiencies) and this will also make one set of speakers sound louder than the other.
Have you looked at the rear of the stereo to make sure there isn't a hook-up for another set of speakers? Sometimes car manufactures use the same stereo for car models that only have rear speakers and the models that have both front and rear, the wiring is just omitted.
 
What kind of a head unit only has 2 channels?
 
Hopefully this pic makes sense. This is how I would be intending to do it for each front channel. Obviously the blue are the speakers, green the deck, and red and black the wires to the speakers.

20140217100807_zps9955900f.png
 
Yep that's parallel, so take the ohms of the speakers and divide by 2.
So long as they don't have great big magnets (for high wattage) you should be fine, I just wouldn't turn it up full blast or you could potentially blow the fuse. As with anything moderation is key.

I look at it like the towing capacity of a truck, it'll tow more but you have to go easy on the skinny, or you'll end up with a broken truck.

I got lucky and found an amp hidden inside the paneling behind my fender well all hooked up and ready to go so I tossed a 10" kicker in the back just because. But I tend to prefer listening to the music made by my dual Flowmasters. They sound better than most of the crap on the radio these days anyway.
 
Last edited:
AR_K5 said:
It has 4 he wants to run 6 speakers
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:doah: yep, misread.

AR_K5 said:
Yep that's parallel, so add the ohms of the 2 speakers and divide by 2.
Click to expand...
You must've mistyped. According to what you said adding 2 4ohms speakers together and dividing by 2 would still give you 4ohms when it should be 2ohms.
The correct equation is:
R(effective)=R1*R2/(R1+R2)
or in the case where all the resistors in parallel are the same value:
R(effective)=R/N where N is the number of resistors
 
You are right, totally my bad. Yes just divide by two. Forget the add part of that, sorry I didn't get much sleep last night. I'll edit my previous post.
 
Don't expect miracles out of it, it's only rated for 22W per channel continuously, don't be fooled by the peak power rating, that's only for momentary bursts like deep bass. And if you're going to have two 4ohm speakers in parallel then that's only 11W to each of those speakers. Once you get the volume turned up you'll probably notice distortion in the fronts due to either clipping (under powered) or the internal amp overload/short circuit protection circuitry kicking in and turning off the front amp. The good thing is that there is a 6 CH pre-amp output that you may be able to use if you're dissatisfied, but I don't know how those outputs are configured.
 
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