4 ohm speakers read 3 ohms?

[MichiganMadDog]

Peavey TVX Bass cabinet with 4 ohm Sheffield speakers wired series/paralleled but all single speakers read 3.0 ohms,... do speakers loose some ohms with use?

[Bmorefoozler]

nope, but DC resistance does not equal a speaker's impedance. That is normal dropoff.

[B-string]

A speaker's nominal AC impedance can not be measured with a DC meter. As noted above.

[MichiganMadDog]

But it can be used as close reference to determine an 8 ohm cab from a 4ohm cab?
And the resistance doesn't change with time normally?

[rpsands]

Typically, the minimum impedance for an 8 ohm speaker is in the neighborhood of 6.5 ohms. Similarly, two 8 ohm speakers in parallel will wind up reading 3-3.3 ohms on the ohm meter in my experience.

[Jazz Ad]

Impedance doesn't change over time. 3 ohms is typical for a 4 ohm cab.

[line6man]

Originally Posted by MichiganMadDog

do speakers loose some ohms with use?

Overheating a coil can melt its insulation and cause shorts. Otherwise, no.

As noted above, it sounds like you measured DC resistance rather than impedance. Speakers are complex impedance devices, so they have both a resistive component that can be measured easily with a multimeter, and an inductive reactance, which is frequency dependent, and does not affect the circuit's behavior with DC power. Impedance is a vector sum of the two, so it is lower when the reactance is 0.

[Jazzdogg]

Impedance does change with frequency, however.