Amplifier Wiring

[Andy_F]

Hi all,

I'm almost finished building my Mini Curved Statements II (https://www.htguide.com/forum/showth...-Statements-II)

I have a question about my amplifier wiring.

I currently use a Marantz amp which sounds good and gives the speakers plenty of 'oomph' but in terms of tonality I prefer the sound of my valve amplifier, but it doesn't have enough power to give a decent bass response.

The diagram shows (crudely) my current set-up and a potential set-up using my valve amp in conjunction with a mono sub with a speaker level input to the mono. I don't want to try it in fear of destroying either the amps or drivers so wanted to run it by the forum first.

With it being a mono amp putting out 275W 4ohm, can I split the signal using Y-splitters? Will the two sets of 2x 80W 8ohm drivers will present a 2x 160W 4ohm load to the amp or will it present as a 320W 2ohm?

Am I talking out of my backside? :lol:

For reference, I have wired the XOs for the MTM and Subs to two separate binding posts.





Thanks for any help on this.

Andy

[sdl2112]

If I understand correctly you wouldn't want to run the woofers mono as they are not really subs, just part of a 3-way design. Also the impedance would be 2 ohm, likely not good for a the sub. All around not a good idea. Can you run the Marantz for the woofers and Valve amp for the MTM section?

[5th element]

Usually there is very little unique information present to either the left or right channel at lower frequencies, most of it is summed mono. So using one amplifier to drive the bass drivers of both left and right channels shouldn't impose that much of a limitation towards sound quality.

The real issue, as sdl alluded to, is whether or not the subwoofer amplifier is capable of driving 2 ohm loads. Of course with the valve amplifier being 25 watts, it's not exactly offering a huge amount of voltage gain. There would be no problem whatsoever in wiring the bass sections of the statements in series to net you an 8 ohm load.

As you correctly surmised above, if you take one 4 ohm speaker and wire it in parallel with another 4 ohm speaker (like using the Y splitters) you end up with a 2 ohm load.

If you wire these two 4 ohm speakers in series with one another then you end up with an 8 ohm load.