Different ohms

[seth9199]

So if i put an after market amp after the stock head unit would that help to correct?

Or what if i added resisters to the lines?

 

[df2x4]

OK hold on. First off, what makes you say your factory speakers are 10 Ohm? Did you actually test them with a multimeter? Second, what exact speakers did you get? Brand and model? Third, what are your goals? Fourth, please don't start adding resistors to speaker lines to increase impedance. In theory it would "work" at least temporarily, but it's far from the correct solution. At best you'd be wasting amplifier power, and at worst creating a fire hazard. Resistors can get hot in a hurry.

 

[Donald Mitchell]

A 4 ohm speaker will draw more current, It probably won`t be a problem but you can add a 4 ohm 5 watt resistor in the circuit to correct this. I noticed the same thing as my originals stated 9.5 ohms. I`m also going with 4 ohm at a much higher wattage as to make future upgrades easier. If you then get an new radio or amp, just remove the resistor.

 

[Donald Mitchell]

OK hold on. First off, what makes you say your factory speakers are 10 Ohm? Did you actually test them with a multimeter? Second, what exact speakers did you get? Brand and model? Third, what are your goals? Fourth, please don't start adding resistors to speaker lines to increase impedance. In theory it would "work" at least temporarily, but it's far from the correct solution. At best you'd be wasting amplifier power, and at worst creating a fire hazard. Resistors can get hot in a hurry.

 

[df2x4]

It probably won`t be a problem but you can add a 4 ohm 5 watt resistor in the circuit to correct this.

That is way too wimpy of a resistor for this application, and exactly why I cautioned against doing this. That would get hot enough to melt things in a hurry if you played the system with any kind of volume.

 

[Donald Mitchell]

Ok hes not talking about a lot of power, the factory rado may put out 20w rms but I doubt it. So the resistors shouldn`t get warm. Your just reducing the current flow to what the amplifier wants to see. And In a high power amp the best solution would be to get the correct speaker or combination of speakers.

 

[df2x4]

Ok hes not talking about a lot of power, the factory rado may put out 20w rms but I doubt it. So the resistors shouldn`t get warm. Your just reducing the current flow to what the amplifier wants to see. And In a high power amp the best solution would be to get the correct speaker or combination of speakers.

Try running 15W continuous through a 5W rated resistor for 5 minutes and see if you can touch it with a bare hand. It doesn't take a high power situation to make an undersized resistor run hot. It's not rocket science to determine that this isn't the best idea.

Personally I'd prefer to match my impedance properly in all situations. That said, I've run 4 Ohm speakers off of the factory head unit in my '97 Suburban and it did just fine, no resistors necessary. I think some of you guys are overthinking this a little. Many amplifiers are capable of running lower impedance speakers than they're actually rated for.

 

[Donald Mitchell]

Ok, your point is taken and the price of a 20 watt resistor would be overkill pricewise I got with an old friend and he said the resistor wouldn`t hurt but he would just leave it out, On a low power system it would probably not matter.

 

[LouF]

Ok hes not talking about a lot of power, the factory rado may put out 20w rms but I doubt it. So the resistors shouldn`t get warm

I, just recently, have been dealing with a similar situation of a home-receiver running car speakers in the garage. The receiver has gone bad twice - I myself am not sure if these burn-ups are because of the speakers, but it is too low of imped. for the unit's spec. Its a 26W receiver, and not played loudly. It was suggested to put in another speaker (or 2) in series.


For the OP's issue, I'd say put in a 6" tube. I put one in my 26 year old truck with its original speakers, and its sound is impressive for what it is. It "sounds like" this is about all that is wanted by th OP. I highly recommend this option.

 

[Ehall8702]

So I guess no body has payed attention to how many speakers are actually in a suburban? There are 8 in my Yukon. Factory radio has 4 channels, if the stock speaker is 9.5 ohms you can divide it by 2 ( chances are there are two speakers in parallel on each channel of the amp ). So if u choose which speakers you want to use ( I only use front and rear doors, but have two 4x10 above the rear barn doors and counting separate tweeters in front doors), u can put 4 ohm speakers in and oem unit will run them with no worries. Alot of aftermarket units support 2 ohm per channel ( tho not usually used if u read the owner's manual some officially support 2ohm, now in 25+ years of installing car audio I can tell you even the cheapest unit will power a 2 ohm load for a long time without any issues but more heat on the heat sinks of unit). In these trucks I usually run the front channels at 2ohm ( that's a replacement front door speaker and factory tweeters since they sound damn good honestly) and only use 4 ohm rears and have never had a stereo ( using aftermarket not oem cause I've never kept an oem unit on any install I've done since they put out like 8-10 watts, even a cheap aftermarket unit is 14 watts rms, high end ones are 18-24 watts rms) fail because of it. Moral of the book I wrote is, pick which speakers you want to replace and wire accordingly. More speakers is not always better , but placement is key. Wiring in parallel half's the load, series doubles the load, try not to use different impedance speakers as the lower impedance speaker will get more power and play louder than the other and can cause imaging havoc unless u get lucky asf lol.