Some basic sound questions

[DoctorStar]

Hi Folks,

 

The "basicness" of these questions probably warrants an entry in Next Generation....only my mid-life crisis prevents me from doing so.

 

1. Our passive speakers have two speakon connectors in the back, one above the other. In the absence of any useful manuals, does it matter which is IN and which is OUT? Is there a convention?

 

2. If I daisy chain these two speakers together through these speakon connectors, will I be connecting them in series or parallel?

 

3. For a given amplifier output what difference will I notice (if any) by daisy chaining two speakers together off one output channel (mono??) compared to running each speaker off its own channel (L & R ???).

 

I am confident that the above questions demonstrate cavernous areas of ignorance in my understanding so your help would be very welcome......no amount of simplification will be taken as patronising.

 

BW

 

Ian

[Wilflet]

Unless theres clear labelling indicating any internal cross overs or anything of that sort the two sockets are generally parallel ie: each pin is connected to both its counterpart on the other socket and the relevant drivers in the cab (think of it like a y split)

So what socket you use shouldn't matter- if you have quite a number of these boxes in a stack its useful for quick problem solving to have a convention you stick to, say top in bottom out so you can trace the cables easier.

[Doug Siddons]

1, It doesn't matter assuming cabs haven't been modified

 

2, 99% sure parallel unless the cabs been modded

 

3, Practically undeterminable difference assuming amp has suffiient power in the first place

[cedd]

Simplest suggestion is to open them up and have a quick look. In the event of them being parallel, you'll be able to tell pretty quickly.

 

There are some odd wiring schemes out there. For instance I have a pair of cabinets that often end up flown from a lighting bar. To reduce cabling I have one 4 core speakon cable going up to them. Each cab is wired with a cross over (wiring, not a frequency crossover) so that set of contacts 1 do the drivers for the first cab. Set of contacts 2 are connected to set of contacts 1 on the output, so upon connecting the second cabinet (which is wired the same as the first internally), the first cab always appears on pair 1, the second on pair 2.

 

It's a decent bet that being unmodified, they'll be in parallel.

 

C

[peterdevon]

I think it may be worth noting that if the speakers are 4 ohms, if two 4 ohm speakers are run in parallel the load will be 2 ohms. Some amps minimum impedance is 4 ohms.

[johndenim]

More to do with car audio, but a useful link below.

 

http://www.bcae1.com/spkrmlti.htm