Running subs in 4 Ohm

Guys, just a very stupid question. All the guys with the BIG systems, Do you run your subs at 8 Ohm or 4 Ohm? In other words, 4 subs to one amp or do you bridge the amps to get the highest power for the subs ie. 1 amp to 1 sub. Just something i was wondering about. :think:

thanks

andre

it depends on what rig im taking out, if im taking the scoops out i use 1 amp per sub feeding them 3600 watt each.....
but if i take the other system out, i may go down to 2 or 4 ohm on the amp........ it depends what amp im using and what it us stable at.... most times ill run at 4ohm on the sub amps......

Normally it depends on your amps.

If you only have cheaper, low power amps, then you often find that by bridging you can get more power from the amps.
If you have invested in BIG amps, then you are better off loading these up with 2 bins (8 ohms each) per channel and driving all 4 from one amp.

Note that bridging is not black magic, you don't just get more power because you bridge. Bridging is a technique that can allow you to supply higher power levels at certain impedances. For example, if you have a 2x 500w (4 ohms), 2x 250w (8 ohms) amp and you have a 500w, 8 ohm driver you would only get 250w running the amp in stereo (with the driver on one of the channels). But you could drive one driver in bridge mode and get 1000w (8 ohms). (4 times as much - not double as you might have though because you would be using BOTH channels)

Many bridged amps are heavy, but do have the advantage of redundancy so if one should die the show can still go on. Also for bigger systems, many small amps can be split over many 13a sockets. One big amp will only be able to get 13a from a normal socket (unless there is a bigger supply available).

In my case i have an amplifier that gives 1000 watt per chanel @ 8 ohm. 1600 wat @ 4 ohm. My bins are 700 watt @ 8 ohm. I was thinking of building another 2 bins of the same design and running them linked to the current bins. So i guess I can go ahead with the extra bins then smiley17

You should be OK running all 4 on the one amp. You wont have much headroom so be careful to set your limiters very conservatively or you might find the amp clips and could kill the drivers if the clipping is prolonged or severe.

In the future you can always look to upgrade the amp to something more powerful in order to get some headroom (aim for at least 1.5 times the speakers combined RMS power handling).