4 factory tower speakers amp wiring question

[shag]

I searched a little bit but couldn't find the answer. I just added a tower from a 2015, G21 to my 2008 SAN 230. I have the factory tower speakers (4) and my old tower had 4 speakers as well. The old tower only had two pair of wires (4 total wires) going to one side/channel of amp. The new tower has 4 pair (8 total wires, from two Duetch connectors). What is the best way to hook these up? New Amp? I have no room on the current amp set up. Thank you in advance, I am not a good audio person. I ordered a 8 conductor length of 18ga correctly color coded wire. I just need to go to the amp from he tower feet, tower already wired.

[TexasTom]

Do you have a photo of this? Would love to see how that tower looks on the boat

[MLA]

You removed 4 tower speakers and put 4 tower speakers right back on, correct? So if it was wired correctly and working with the old tower, then you should be fine with what you have. Sounds like the only difference is where the parallel connection is made before, to where its going to be now.

[bturner]

It depends on what your objective is. Most of these speakers are going to be 4 ohm. Connect them in parallel and now their running at 2 ohm. If your amp supports this you're probably fine. Be aware that your amp will be running hotter as it'll be drawing more current to provide the same power (p = I squared x R). R is a constant here so if you want more P, I has to go up. The less R you have the more I you're going to need to get P. The more current you run the hotter the amp is going to run. Again, if your set up was with 4 ohm speakers in parallel before you would have the same set up running the new speakers in parallel so you should be fine or at least as much as you were before.

If it were my installation and since you have a speaker wire for each speaker I would buy a 4 channel amp and run each speaker off a separate channel. What you do is totally up to you.

[shag]

Thanks for the input. I will probably invest in a four channel amp then if that is better. The existing previous tower speakers (from 2008) were working good and sounded good, but it threw me with having the second deutche plug with 4 wires. And I am wanting to do things right, so I guess a new amp is in order, It appears the previous set-up (not factory) ran one channel off this amp to the in boat speakers and one channel to all four tower. Texas Tom I am going to try and do a project of the install soon. I am really happy with the way it came out, looks like a totally new boat lol, and I will gain two additional drink holders in the front where the tower legs were

[MLA]

It appears the previous set-up (not factory) ran one channel off this amp to the in boat speakers and one channel to all four tower

This is not feasible. Can you provide a brand/model number for the amp?

Contrary to the above info, your amp will not be running any "hotter" with the 4 new speakers as it was with the 4 old speakers. As I said in my previous posts, the only thing that has changed, is the physical location of the parallel connection. Electrically, nothing is changing between the 2 setups, just the location of this parallel connection.

Dont overthink it.

[shag]

I am on duty and won't be able to get a pic till Monday probably then I will try to update this post. Thank you so much, I just want to make it work the best way I can. Another thing is that even though they are stock speaker cans from that year (2015), one pair has 'Focal' branded speakers, and one pair has roswell speakers. I opened up the backs to see if I could find model numbers and or Ohm ratings, etc but nothing but the logos can be seen.

[bturner]

"Contrary to the above info, your amp will not be running any "hotter" with the 4 new speakers as it was with the 4 old speakers."

I think you missed this in my response....

"Again, if your set up was with 4 ohm speakers in parallel before you would have the same set up running the new speakers in parallel so you should be fine or at least as much as you were before."

What I was trying to do was make the comparison between running in 2 ohm versus 4 ohm configurations. The amp will pull more current to make the same power in a 2 ohm environment versus a 4 ohm environment. The more current you draw, the hotter the amp will run. Here's the math....

[MLA]

Those would have been the OEM offering. The Focal is a traditional 6x9 coaxial and the Roswell is a 6.5" horn loaded compression driver. Both are 4 ohm.

This throws a significant wrench into the setup if you want to do it in the most ideal manor. You've got not only 2 different size speakers, but 2 different types. In your scenario, these speakers do not have the same power handling specs, will not consume wattage the same and will not play some frequencies at the same amplitude.

So in an ideal setup, you would want the 6x9 coaxials on their own chnls and 6.5 HLCD on their own chnls. This allows you to power and tune the different size and type correctly. So it sounds as if the previous 4 speakers were wired to at least 2 open amp chnls. These could be used for one pair. Whichever pair best suits the amp wattage available. Depending on the rest of the setup, it may require an additional amp for the 2nd pair.

Or, swap the 6.5" HLCD drivers out for some 6x9" coaxial. Now you have 4 matching size/type speakers and wire then just as the previous 4 tower speakers were wired.

[MLA]

Bturner,

Not sure why you used 17.32 volts DC. Was that the value needed to make it come out as you needed? 2nd, the 2 and 4 ohm and the (r) values are on the AC volt output side of the amp, while the DC voltage and current draw are on the input side of the amp. So you really cant effectively use ohms law in this type of calculation.

However, with most any modern amps, the amp will not be producing the same output at 2 ohm, as it does at 4 ohm. Reducing the impedance will net more output. So obviously, as the load increases amp current draw increases. If there is no increase in wattage output, then there would be no amperage draw increase. So in summery, the amp will draw more amperage at 2 ohm as it will be producing more speaker wattage then at 4 ohm.

There are some exceptions to the above. There are some mono amps that are 1 ohm stable, but do not produce any additional wattage then they do at 2 ohm. But nearly any full-range 2 ohm stable amp, is going to produce more wattage at 2 ohm then at 4 ohm.

[StormTrooperZ28]

You can run 4 speakers into 1 channel at 4ohms but you will have no power going to them. If you run 2 speakers in series you will double your ohms from 4 to 8 ohms for those 2 speakers. So if you have 2 sets of speakers wired in series running 8ohms, you will then parallel them together and reduce the ohms back down to 4 ohms. Honestly when I am wiring up tower speakers that want great power, I run a high watt 4 channel amp to them, or even 2 mid-high watt amps and double bridge the 4 channel amps so each 4 channel amp is powering 2 speakers.
You just have to ALWAYS make sure you are running the correct ohm load for the speakers and the amp as well. As said by someone else before, if you run your amp down at 2 ohms and it's a 4ohm stable channel you will run the amp hot and eventually start burning things up and also cause the annoying whistle or whine to come out in your speakers like a ground loop noise.