Can a person run dual tempest off one ava250 in an adire alignment? (1 Viewer)

[Gary Joe]

The reason I ask is because I'd initially like to build a box or tube but once I move into the new house go with an IB setup. I was thinking one VC on each sub hooked up like they do the dual tempest IB setups only with each sub in a vented enclosure. Would this work or is one vc per sub only good on IB setups? Thanks for the input.

 

[Ryan Schnacke]

Yes, this would work. But it doesn't provide any notable advantage over driving a single Tempest. Here's why:

A single Tempest driven with 250 watts isn't really going to have problems bottoming out - except below tuning. We'll ignore the bottoming below tuning since you'll have a rumble filter. So your output volume will be determined by the sensitivity of your system (not by the Tempest's displacement volume).

A single Tempest with coils in parallel has a sensitivity of 92.1dB @ 2.83V. If you drive only one coil its 86.1dB @ 2.83V. By adding a 2nd Tempest and putting one of its coils in parallel with the 1st you'll gain 6dB. That's 3dB from doubling the radiating surface and 3dB from power gains of halving the impedance. So you're back to the 92.1dB @ 2.83V that you got from a single Tempest. No gain. It does keep you from stressing the Tempests - they won't be anywhere near their limits.

In this case I'd say connect ALL the voice coils to the amp but in parallel/series fashion to get an 8 ohm load. You'll still be at 92.1dB theoretically but the amp now driving an easier 8 ohm load. And since the PE amps don't double their power output when you go from 8 to 4 ohms (180 to 270 watts), they also won't halve their power output when you go from 4 to 8 ohms (270 to 180 watts). So this setup may have some advantages over the scheme you suggested.