4x12 Speaker cab wiring question

[mytool4u]

I have been to every forum on the net and this is my last resort. I have been building a 4x12 cabinet for about a week now and am about to wire in the speakers. Every other forum gives me some complicated diagram with squiggly lines and arrows on it and then gets mad when I ask them to explain it, or they go of on a tangent about impedence. I have four 12", 16 ohm speakers that I want to put in the box. First of all is there any way I can wire them to get 8 ohms of output? Second can someone please tell me (as if they were talking to the dumbest person on the planet) how to wire the darn things together step by step? You guys are my last resort. From what I have read this forum is very helpful. Work your magic. Thanks

Rob

 

[quasi]

Sorry there is no way to get 8 ohms from 4 x 16 ohm speakers and have all the speakers equally share the power.

You can wire them up for 4 ohms by connecting all the negative (black) terminals together and all the positive terminals together.

Any good amp should be able to drive into 4 ohms (check first though).

Cheers

 

[mytool4u]

When you say "all terminals together", does that mean that two wire ends will be soldered to the same terminal throughout the case? Sorry, but I did say I was the dumbest person on the planet when it came to wiring. So if I have this right it would go like this. Connect a wire to the pos terminal on the output jack, send that wire to the pos on the first speaker, solder a second wire to the pos on the first speaker and send it to the second speaker in the parallel, and so on until all four speakers are connected (so there would be more than one wire soldered to the same terminal, right?) Then do the same thing with the neg side. Is that correct?

 

[Brion55]

This might help:

 

[mytool4u]

That diagram shows the parallel connection, but how are the connections that I have circled in your diagram made? Are they just spliced together?

 

[quasi]

When you say "all terminals together", does that mean that two wire ends will be soldered to the same terminal throughout the case? Sorry, but I did say I was the dumbest person on the planet when it came to wiring. So if I have this right it would go like this. Connect a wire to the pos terminal on the output jack, send that wire to the pos on the first speaker, solder a second wire to the pos on the first speaker and send it to the second speaker in the parallel, and so on until all four speakers are connected (so there would be more than one wire soldered to the same terminal, right?) Then do the same thing with the neg side. Is that correct?

This might help:

That diagram shows the parallel connection, but how are the connections that I have circled in your diagram made? Are they just spliced together?

All correct. You can use the speaker terminals as the commoning point or you can wire back to a central connectin point. If I were you I would just wire directly to the speaker termnal point. This means that all speakers will have 2 wires per terminal except for one (the last one).

Cheers

 

[thedoctor]

Speaker wiring

Mytool, your posts on the other forums were answered quite well, I think, by those that know. What you changed is the impedence of your cab from your other forum's posts. In other word's, you found out you can't do it and changed forums cause you didn't like the answer. I think you are now getting the answer loud and clear. As for your opinion of yourself, it is yours so why fight it.
rookierob does it again!

 

[mytool4u]

What's up Doc?

Actually, the other forums (that you are obviously a part of ) were condescending when it came to electronics. This forum was great! I said I knew nothing and meant it. All the others did was confuse me so I switched. I think that's just smart shopping. By the way, I think you should change your name from the doctor to Magnum PI. Get a life, and try to be helpful instead of facetious.

 

[Cal Weldon]

Is your objective 16 ohms or 4 ohms? Those are basically your choices. If you tell us that answer, I will walk you through the rest. What has been shown to you so far in this thread is 4 ohms.

Cal

 

[Evan Robinson]

You could get 8ohms, but not by any combination of wiring all four together. You could wire two together in parallel (negatives tied together, positives tied together) and the other two in parallel, and then connect them to two separate amplifiers. But, it looks like you only want to use one amplifier, in which case, if you can find a way to wire them to get 8ohms, Georg Ohm would love to see it. So, you have these options:

1 amp:
16 ohms
4 ohms
6.4 ohms (amplifier sees that load, but subs will be unequally powered)

2 amps:
8 ohms each

Good luck.

 

[mytool4u]

Cal,

I would love to see the 16 ohm version as well. I think the amp may only be capable of 8 which would mean the parallel set up would be out the window (4ohms)

Thanks

 

[Brion55]

Here you go:

 

[Cal Weldon]

Brion,

Thanks for doing that.

One question: What is the pupose of the wire running through the middle of the diagram?

Cal

 

[mytool4u]

I have the same question. What the heck is that middle wire?

 

[jt baptiste]

Without the middle wire, a blown speaker will take out its "partner" as well - with it in, three speakers will still work in absence of the fourth ...

 

[Cal Weldon]

OK, hadn't thought of that.

But, if a driver blows, have you not lowered the impedance? In this case not so bad but in others, I wonder...

EDIT: Rethinking, I'm not sure the impedance would be lowered.

 

[jt baptiste]

OK, hadn't thought of that.

But, if a driver blows, have you not lowered the impedance? In this case not so bad but in others, I wonder...

EDIT: Rethinking, I'm not sure the impedance would be lowered.

Actually it would go up a bit - in the case of 4-16ohm speakers it would go from 16 to 24 ohms when one speaker dropped out. This is probably not a problem for tube or transistor amplifiers ...

 

[Brion55]

Actually, it doesn't have to be there, but I've seen many guitar amp cabinets wired this way.

 

[Giaime]

It's simple: you put the upper speakers in parallel to get 8ohms, and put this parallel couple in series with another one to get 16ohm.

 

[mytool4u]

Actually, as it turns out. My head has a left and right speaker jack on the back. So I guess I would just wire the right side of my cabinet in a parallel to get eight ohms, and then do the same with the left. I would just have to make sure that the cabinet has two output jacks instead of one.(one for the right two speakers and one for the left two.) Right?