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Wiring 2-8 ohm drivers and 1-4 ohm tweeter

B

Bluemaggie

Mar 5, 2020
5
1
#1
I am building my own bass cab with T/S parameters. I have 2 8ohm drivers and 1 4 ohm tweeter with crossover.

Do I send power to the two 8 ohm drivers in series/parallel and power straight to the crossover for the 4 ohm tweeter.
 
#2
Yes, power to the two drivers in parallel and also power to the crossover in parallel with the speaker load. It will be a 4-ohm cab. Forget about series connections in this case. This is NOT valid if there truly is an actual crossover, rather than the more usual high-pass network -- in that case, the power goes to the crossover and then from the crossover to the respective HF and LF components.
 
#3
Hold on a minute, What are the drivers and what amp are you powering with.

For example, most 210 cabinets will be seriously overpowered when driven by many of the newer amps.

Also, what kind of crossover is it? It it just a high pass filter for the tweeter or is there a low pass filter included?
 
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#4
agedhorse said:
Hold on a minute, What are the drivers and what amp are you powering with.

For example, most 210 cabinets will be seriously overpowered when driven by many of the newer amps.

Also, what kind of crossover is it? It it just a high pass filter for the tweeter or is there a low pass filter included?
Click to expand...

Well there are a number of Class D heads which are around 300 to 400 watts. Ampeg, GR Bass, the GC Acoustic, come to mind.

But probably worthy of another thread. Why do so many companies start their Class D offerings at 800 watts (usually into four ohms)? Is the OEM cost differential of buying a Class D amp module so small going from say 300 to 800 watts it's not worth the trouble to offer a lower powered head? (obviously for some brands they still choose to do that).

My "big rig" is power amp based and uses two four ohm cabs, with that setup (uses a QSC PLX-1602) it just gets insanely loud (each channel gets one four ohm cabinet).

Even outside on large stages or in large venues (in both cases with PA support) I never even got above 11 o'clock on the master volume; and it was LOUD, I mean LOUD.

So 800 watts seems like overkill for a lot of people but Mesa and Bergantino (to use two examples) only offer 800 watt amps. Would a slightly smaller amp of say 400 watts just not be that much cheaper?

I say this because my "small gig rigs" use a 2 x 10" and either a 350 watt or 550 watt head and those were loud as hell too. I play loud and I like it loud, but for me 800 watts is at the point of starting to be overkill.

But would a B400 Mesa only be $75 cheaper (in street price) or something?

Analogeezer
 

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