4 ohm speakers

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prodjay

prodjay

Mac Daddy DJ
Dec 13, 2009
1,103
560
Bossier, Louisiana
I have a rare night off and spent most of the day working in the shop fixing and painting equipment. After putting together my new rack, I wanted to test it out. So I grabbed the closest speaker I could get my hands on for a test run.(new mixer and power amp). After a couple of minutes I was very impressed with the volume. Now that I put everything away I noticed the speakers I was using were 4 ohm tops (12" B-52's). Now these tops are part of a Matrix 2000 system, that is powered by the sub. The sub put out 300 watts to each top, now the new amp I used for the test puts out 900 watts into 4 ohms per cahnnel. All I can say is WOW, I have never heard those tops get that loud.

My question to everyone is would you buy 4 ohm speakers if they offered them as a option in the brand and make you use?
 
prodjay said:
I have a rare night of and spent most of the day working in the shop fixing and painting equipment. After putting together my new rack, I wanted to test it out. So I grabbed the closest speaker I could get my hands on for a test run.(new mixer and power amp). After a couple of minutes I was very impressed with the volume. Now that I put everything away I noticed the speakers I was using were 4 ohm tops (12" B-52's). Now these tops are part of a Matrix 2000 system, that is powered by the sub. The sub put out 300 watts to each top, now the amp I used for the test puts out 900 watts into 4 ohms. All I can say is WOW, I have never heard those tops get that loud.

My question to everyone is would you buy 4 ohm speakers if they offered them as a option in the brand and make you use?
Click to expand...

Yes .. but impedance (ohms) isn't a factor I use in deciding on a speaker, unless I know I will be daisy-chaining multiple speakers together.

The real numbers you should look at are sensitivity and maximum SPL. These determine how much output the speaker will produce given an input and how loud they'll get overall. Additional important values are dispersion (left/right and up/down coverage) and frequency range.

A 4 ohm rated speaker may or may not be louder than an equivalent box with an 8 ohm rating .. it depends on the sensitivity.
 
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Yes, I agree about the sensitivity and SPL. That is why I said as long it was in the brand you currently use. The only thing I like is the fact that it puts the amp into a 4 ohm output mode, which usually means way more power out.
 
Yep, Steve is correct about the sensitivity and SPL. I have noticed that over the last ten to 15 years a lot of the Powered and some passives are being manufactured as 4 ohms. My feeling is because those numbers are usually "larger" in wattage, it is a big draw/attraction for those who are just looking for power specs. They are not schooled in how all the other specs cause performance.

Design has a lot to do with the system. For instance, for Bass I use 4 JBL scoops that each have a 16ohm transducer, When I pair then up in parallel I can achieve about 8 ohms per side and if I run each pair in parallel again I can get about 4ohms. This is why in a previous thread I made a comment that if an amp or speaker goes out on my system, that I can easily reconfigure my system to compensate for the loss.
 
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Every speaker system we owned was a 4 ohm cabinet. Tops, dually 15s and bass bins were all 4 ohm boxes. I wouldn't have it any other way. :)
 
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Most all dual speaker cabinets are 4 ohms. I use Yorkville E210's (2x10"). They are rated at 600 watts (1200 watts peak / 300 watts continuous) with a 102db @1wt/1m and an SPL rating of 133dB peak (130dB continuous). These speaker STOMP!!!
 
I've had both 4 and 8 Ohm speakers and it may be psychological but I always found the 4Ohm boxes sounded better
 
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My main tops are actually 6 ohms. They are plenty efficient 102db @ 1w and put out about 135db full out. Oh yea they are home made...
 
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A downside to 4 ohm cabs is that to double them up (if an amp dies), your amps needs to be able to handle a 2 ohm load. Most budget amps won't.
 
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I use another. I own four E210's.

Edit: But if I didn't have a backup speaker, I could probably use one (in mono) and get by. They are rated at 600 watts and could easily do a small to medium size wedding.
 
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