Best way to wire 6 speakers to a 2 channel amp?

I need to run 6 interior 4 ohm 6.5" speakers from a 2 channel pioneer amp I have under my dash.

The amp is 2 ohm stable and has run my existing 4 speakers (pair wired in parallel to give 2 ohm) absoloutely fine. The amp runs a hi pass filter so it takes the edge off the bass so I can push the sound a little harder.

This year I'm adding an extra pair in the bow so I need to know whats the best way to add these without toasting the amp. The way I see it I'm either going to end up with a 6 ohm load which will be fine but may be a little low on power or a 1.5 ohm load which may put a strain on the amp.

Any suggestions? A new amp is out of the question as I have no spare cash after buying a new sub, 4 tower speakers and 2 amps to run them.

I had the same problem when doing my tower a while back. I was running a PPI 4125 for reference. First time I wired them three to each channel parrelel and it dropped the ohm load way too low. What I got to work was 3 on a channel in series. Be warned though, I was never really trully happy cause I couldn't get the same sound to play out of all speakers..... Hope this helps good luck.

P.S. I finally decided that two channel amps are not really designed to run six speakers and switched the whole set up.

As these are just cheap 6.5"s I think it might be ok. I've worked out if wire them series/parallel I can get a 2.6 ohm load which is fine with my amp so I'll give it a go.

Buy another amp!!!

3 speakers @ 4ohms in parallel = 1.334 ohms

Doing a series/parallel combo will sound unbalanced.

Just run 4 off the amp and 2 off the deck output. Your amp will hate you if you run it with all those in parallel.

As Doug said, buy another amp, 4 channels.

Overloaded + Undervoltage = smoke

here you go dude

Sorry..... series Parrallael speaker configuration

I'll give the series/parallel wiring a go and see what it souns like. As I said I can't afford another amp at the moment and the headunit has no internal amp so thats out of the question too.

Unfortunately, i'm pretty sure the series/parallel setup will not give you equal volume from all speakers because those speakers in the parallel portion of the wiring will get half the power, and the other half will be split amongst those wired in parallel.

I can only think of one approach that would give you equal volume from each speaker.

I would run the speakers from each side of the the boat in series. That would give you 12 ohms per side (4+4+4). Then run those two series' in parallel. That would give you a single channel with impedance of 6 ohms (12/2). Then, bridge the two-channel amp and hook that single channel up to it. An amp that is bridged will "see" one-half of the actual impedance present (6/2=3 ohms) and its output will increase accordingly.

Since i dont know what particular amp you have, i'll state a hypothetical one.

Assuming an amp that outputs 75Wx2 @ 4ohms. Its output at 2 ohms woud theoretically be 150x2 @2 ohms. Most likely, because of regulation in the amps power supply, it will put out about 125W x 2 @ 2 ohms. Its bridged power would probably be about 250W x 1 @ 4ohms, with an unregulated yield of 300Wx1 @ 4 ohms

In calculating the power output at 6 ohms, i'll start from the theoretical yield of the amp at 300Wx1 @ 4 ohms. (300W x 4ohms) / 6 ohms = 200W.

The amp power supply wont clamp down as much on a 6 ohm load as it would on a 4 ohm load, so i would make a rough guesstimate that you would probably get about 180Wx1 @6 Ohms. That would give you an equal 30W RMS to each of the six speakers.

Thats probably enough for the passengers to hear; you've got the tower speakers to get the sound off the boat. Also, the fact that you're using a sub and a high-pass crossover makes this more feasible. It takes more wattage for an amp to tightly control a woofer cone to prevent distortion than it does a mid or tweet.

The only problem with this setup is that you lose the "stereo effect." All the speakers will output the exact thing, as opposed to having separate left and right channels. I dont consider this to be a big deal. I'm really hoping that boat audio has not gotten to a point where soundstaging is really an issue. Regardless, this method will work, and will not burn up your amp; even if its just a temporary thing until you can invest in another amp.

Thats just my $0.02 based on my experience with several installs in cars.

Cheers,
DKJ

Cheers.

I did consider doing it that way and the amp is bridgeable so I'd get the most bang for my buck that way.

I'll give it a go. Stereo is nice but not sure if nessacery. I'm running my tower speakers mono too.