Series and Parallel wiring power requirements?

[Arbury]

Ok, I have a question about series and parallel wiring that I have not been able to find an answer for.

Lets say I have two 8 ohm drivers that are rated to handle 300 watts each.

If I understand things correctly, if I wire these in parallel I get a 4 ohm load with a power handling of 600 watts.

What I can not find a answer for is what happens to the power handling in I wire these in serial. I know that they would be come a 16 ohm load, but would the power rating be 600 watts or 150 watts?

Thanks.

Arbury

 

[AudioFreak]

power handling will still be 600W........

 

[Won]

Power handling will be 600W, as AF points out. However, because the impedence is twice as high, some amps (which are normally designed to achieve peak power between 8 and 4 ohms) might be voltage-limited.

I wonder which configuration yields the best sound quality...

-Won

 

[AudioFreak]

if neither solution is suitable you can drive each driver from a seperate amp then each will see 8ohms.

 

[Super]

Just to elaborate a bit on what Won said, many amplifiers double their power output as the impedance halves, and the power handling of the drivers, no matter what the configuration, remains the same.

For example, lets say you were using a 300 watt into 8-ohms amplifier, that can handle impedances down to four ohms. If parallel the drivers, the amp sees have the load, and therefore puts out ~ 600 watts into 4 ohms. If you run the two in series, however, the amp sees twice the load, so power output is likely to be about 150 watts. If you can parallel your drivers, its definitely the better way to go (very common practice for building subwoofers and MTM designs)

Oh, and just a side note: unless your actively driving your speakers, the parts in your passive crossover are more likely to play a bigger effect on power handling, and probably won't come close to that which the drivers are capable of.