Dual Tempest Wiring Help (1 Viewer)

[Garth]

OK I'm Almost done but I'm, questioning if I wired it right. I hooked each driver's vc's in parallel (+) to (+),(-) to(-) Then hooked the drivers together in series Driver1(+) to terminal cup(+), Driver1(-) to Driver2(+) Driver2(-) to terminal cup(-). Is this right? Is there a better way?
Thanks
Garth

 

[Pete Mazz]

If you wanted to achieve an single 8 ohm load, then yes.

Better way? Dunno if it's better, but you could have series wired each driver's VCs and paralleled the two drivers for the identical 8 ohm load.

Pete

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

So are you using a single amplifier like a 500 or 1000 watt sub amp @ 4 ohms?

If you wired the dual voice coils on each tempest in parallel you have 4 ohms for each tempest. Then, if you wire those 2 tempests in series you get an 8 ohm load on the amp. This might not result in enough power for the tempests to flex their wings.

If you wire those 2 tempests parallel you'll get a 2 ohm load on the amp. This might be too much for the average HT amp.

I would go for a 4 ohm total load if your amp can handle it. You can get a net 4 ohm load by using the single 8 ohm voice coil from each tempest and shorting the other coil on each driver. This will result in 2 tempests each 8 ohms. Wire those 2 tempests in parallel to the amp and you'll have 4 ohms.

 

[Garth]

I'm using the Bash500S which is rated at:
Into 4ohms 550 Watts
Into 8ohms 375 Watts
I ran it last night as per my above post and WOW that's some huge bass. I thought if I only used 1 vc and ran them at a 4ohm load I wasn't using the driver to the max? This wiring is all greek to me so please spell out any fixes with the (+) and the (-).
Thanks
Garth

 

[Ryan Schnacke]

Given 2.83Vrms input here's how some connection schemes compare (from the Tempest white paper):

Single Tempest, coils in parallel, 4 ohms - 92.1dB
Single Tempest, coils in series, 16 ohms - 86.1dB
Single Tempest, drive one coil, 8 ohms - 86.1dB

Dual Tempest, coils in parallel/series, 8 ohms - 92.1dB
Dual Tempest, coils in series/parallel, 8 ohms - 92.1dB
Dual Tempest, drive one coil each in parallel, 4 ohms - 92.1dB

That last case has the advantage that you can put a variable resistor on the unused terminals and use Resistively Damped Operation (RDO) to vary the Q value. But it also has the disadvantage that a single voice coil is doing all the work rather than splitting the work load between the two and the amplifier is driving the tougher 4 ohm load. Keep in mind that you'll only get the full +6dB if the amplifier is able to maintain the same output voltage for both 8 and 4 ohm loads. At 4 ohms this requires twice the power output.

Basically, unless you planning to use RDO I'd use all the voice coils. And unless you using more than the linear output of a single Tempest then there's no real advantage over using a single Tempest, coils in parallel. But I'm sure you'll find some occaision to crank this puppy.