Dual Tempests & 4ohm's (1 Viewer)

[Mike Strassburg]

I'm building a sonotube with dual tempests. Dan said parts will ship in a few weeks. Will be powered by Adire's HS500 amp. Can I wire them to run at a 4ohm load? I've been searching for diagrams but no luck so far...TIA....Mike

 

[Brian Fellmeth]

I think your stuck choosing between 8 and 2 ohms if you want to power all 4 VC's. You can wire one VC from each driver in parallel and then put a resister or a short across the unpowered VC's. This will be 4 ohms.

 

[Mike Strassburg]

Thanks Brian. I did see that somewhere, but assume that it's not the best way to go as no one seems to do that. I'm hoping that in the large enclosure I'm building that 250wpc will be enough...

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Brian is right, the only way to get a dual-Tempest 4-ohm load is to leave one VC in each unwired. I don't recommend that for almost all apps, as you lose efficiency and thermal power-handling.

 

[Mike Strassburg]

I was going through Patrick Sun's excellent build up of his dual Shiva sonosub and it appears that he wired them for 4ohm's. If that's what he did, could the Tempests be wired the same way??? It's obvious that I'm not an EE.......

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Yes, as I mentioned above. If you did it that way, you'd gain 220 watts output from the amp since you'd have a 4-ohm load, but lose 3-6db sensitivity from the system due to a single VC in each. That's a net loss in output. You could always get a stereo amp and have the best of both, unless you were really set on a plate. A QSC RMX850 is only $299 for 300wpc into 4 ohms.

 

[Brian Bunge]

"You could always get a stereo amp and have the best of both,

unless you were really set on a plate. A QSC RMX850 is only $299 for

300wpc into 4 ohms."

Jack,

I think that's exactly what Pat has done. I believe he paralleled the voice coils of each driver to create a 4 ohm load and then used a 2 channel amp; 1 channel for each driver.

Brian

 

[dougW]

Brian, that's how I wired my Shivas as well, powered by a Parasound 1500A amp. does a heckuva job. Should be interesting to start my 4 Tempest project though, . The question is when, to many projects, not enough time.
Lex