Impedance and power rating of a speaker cabinet?

by MS
(UK)

Ohms and impedance - have read the dummys guide but still mystified. I have 2 speaker cabs....each containing x2 fane 12 inch 100 watt 16 ohm speakers. So, would 2x 16 ohm = 32ohm..8ohm..or stay 16ohm? Also, if 100watt each, is max power 100 watt or 200 watt per cab?

---

Hi

Our dummies guide to impedance is a little too simplified for your needs.

With home cinema and hi-fi speakers, we just get a box with some woofers and tweeters and the manufacturer gives an impedance and power for that box.

It gets a bit more complicated when we talk about speaker cabinets which can contain multiple speakers - maybe with a different power and impedance for each speaker in the cabinet.

There's a good page here which is more specific about cabinets - speaker cabinet wiring.

For the impedance, it depends if the speakers are wired in parallel or series. The diagrams on the page show you the difference in wiring.

So, 2 x 16 ohms in parallel = 8 ohms - and 2 x 16 in series = 32 ohms.

For the power, if the power rating is the same for both speakers then just multiply the power by the number of speakers - so 2 x 100 = 200.

Hope that helps.

Paul (Site Editor)

Feel free to join in this discussion by adding your own comments below...