Stupid question
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Road Master
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,220
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From: chatham il
Stupid question
What is the downfall to running a 8ohm speaker of of my 2 ohm head unit? Sorry if this question makes you audio guys cringe but I'm just not really a audio guy. Maybe if someone could explain speaker ohms to me it would make more sense?
Extreme HDF Member
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 14,670
Likes: 139
From: East of the Sun, West of the Moon
i'll give you the very short version of this.
It's ok to go up in impedance/ohms but not down. So if you have a headunit that is stable at 2 ohms, it's ok to go to 4 or 8 ohms but you cannot go to something like a 1 ohm speaker. You'll toast your outputs on your head unit.
The drawback to using 8 ohm speakers is you will wind up at a much higher volume level (bars on display) to achieve the same sound you would out of a 2 ohm speaker to achieve the same sound level. What this does; because the volume level has to be turned up higher is starts to inject distortion into your audio. This is not a good thing as distortion is what kills speakers probably 90% of the time vs what most people think is power killing them.
I would at a minimum suggest a good 4 ohm speaker to put in your fairing. There are a lot of good 4 ohm speakers out there and at very inexpensive prices. 2 ohm speakers and 8 ohm speakers are hard to find these days.
I put a pair of these kickers in a road glide a couple of weekends ago and they sounded pretty decent and a much improved sound over stock. And at $69.. that cheap for decent sound.
It's ok to go up in impedance/ohms but not down. So if you have a headunit that is stable at 2 ohms, it's ok to go to 4 or 8 ohms but you cannot go to something like a 1 ohm speaker. You'll toast your outputs on your head unit.
The drawback to using 8 ohm speakers is you will wind up at a much higher volume level (bars on display) to achieve the same sound you would out of a 2 ohm speaker to achieve the same sound level. What this does; because the volume level has to be turned up higher is starts to inject distortion into your audio. This is not a good thing as distortion is what kills speakers probably 90% of the time vs what most people think is power killing them.
I would at a minimum suggest a good 4 ohm speaker to put in your fairing. There are a lot of good 4 ohm speakers out there and at very inexpensive prices. 2 ohm speakers and 8 ohm speakers are hard to find these days.
I put a pair of these kickers in a road glide a couple of weekends ago and they sounded pretty decent and a much improved sound over stock. And at $69.. that cheap for decent sound.
Tourer
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 431
Likes: 1
From: South Carolina
i'll give you the very short version of this.
It's ok to go up in impedance/ohms but not down. So if you have a headunit that is stable at 2 ohms, it's ok to go to 4 or 8 ohms but you cannot go to something like a 1 ohm speaker. You'll toast your outputs on your head unit.
The drawback to using 8 ohm speakers is you will wind up at a much higher volume level (bars on display) to achieve the same sound you would out of a 2 ohm speaker to achieve the same sound level. What this does; because the volume level has to be turned up higher is starts to inject distortion into your audio. This is not a good thing as distortion is what kills speakers probably 90% of the time vs what most people think is power killing them.
I would at a minimum suggest a good 4 ohm speaker to put in your fairing. There are a lot of good 4 ohm speakers out there and at very inexpensive prices. 2 ohm speakers and 8 ohm speakers are hard to find these days.
I put a pair of these kickers in a road glide a couple of weekends ago and they sounded pretty decent and a much improved sound over stock. And at $69.. that cheap for decent sound.
It's ok to go up in impedance/ohms but not down. So if you have a headunit that is stable at 2 ohms, it's ok to go to 4 or 8 ohms but you cannot go to something like a 1 ohm speaker. You'll toast your outputs on your head unit.
The drawback to using 8 ohm speakers is you will wind up at a much higher volume level (bars on display) to achieve the same sound you would out of a 2 ohm speaker to achieve the same sound level. What this does; because the volume level has to be turned up higher is starts to inject distortion into your audio. This is not a good thing as distortion is what kills speakers probably 90% of the time vs what most people think is power killing them.
I would at a minimum suggest a good 4 ohm speaker to put in your fairing. There are a lot of good 4 ohm speakers out there and at very inexpensive prices. 2 ohm speakers and 8 ohm speakers are hard to find these days.
I put a pair of these kickers in a road glide a couple of weekends ago and they sounded pretty decent and a much improved sound over stock. And at $69.. that cheap for decent sound.
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