I just got my pair of 3-way speakers upgraded and repaired at the shop. Besides the repairs on the mids, I had the old woofers thrown out and installed new 2x4 ohm single voice coil 500watt/rms "sub" woofer drivers that match the specs fine. The part i'm having difficulty with is that since the subwoofer is connected to a crossover that separates the mid driver and the tweeter, how to I ensure my new subs are capable of reaching their proper 500 watts of power providing that the mids and tweets are connected to the crossover as well? Plus, the shop said that the whole speaker could be wired to a lowest of 8ohms so if the subwoofer is a 500 watt 2x4ohm sub, how do I match the amp for this, keeping in mind the crossover with the mids and highs?!
Speakers don't have watts, only amplifiers have watts. Your "500 watt" speakers are more concerned about how little power you have. I assume you want these speakers to play rather loudly, right? Did the folks who repaired the speakers give any idea of the system's "electrical sensitivity"after the whole thing had been accomplished? Or, do you know the sensitivity of the original speaker since you say the new drivers matched the specs of the old drivers? If not, what sort of speakers (brand/model) were these originally?
What amp do you have now and how much do you want to pay for a new one?
Yes, I know speakers don't have watts. They obviously dont put out power. Commercially speaking, my speakers (in this case each subwoofer) are 500 watts capable. 500watts rms/speaker,1000 watts peak 2x4 ohms single voice coil to be specific. No, I didn't consider the sensitivity, well because, every other driver is still the same being only repaired except the subwoofers which were upgraded. The subwoofers match in spec relatively close to the old ones, but the major difference is the jump in power capacity. To answer your question these speakers were originally cerwin vega D-9s, but the mids, tweeters and sub are different while remaining in the original cabinet. The amp I'm planning on getting is not really a plan since my question to you guys was relating to the difficulty in deciding which amp to choose so that the bottom end gets what it needs. However, im having trouble choosing my amp because it's not as simple as just having 500 watt subs to power alone which I would then choose a 500watt per channel amp. This is a 3-way speaker with a crossover network so I'm scratching my head on how I'm going to choose an amp so that the subs get their juices as well as the mids and tweets which are roughly another 100watts rms altogether. Everything connects to the crossover so how do I decide which amp to get so the subs get 500 each without blowing the mids and tweets first? You get where I'm coming from?
No. Are these active or passive crossovers? Are these still the same crossovers that were outfitted to the D9's? If so, then you use the same amp you would use with the D9's. The crossover and the nature of music will take care of the division of power. If the amp distorts, turn down the volume. If you simply do that, you should never blow up a tweeter or midrange.
100 watts to the mid and tweeter in a D9 is never going to happen. Maybe twenty watts on peaks but not 100. It doesn't really matter; when you hear distortion, turn down the volume.
Drivers don't know they're supposed to be "subwoofers". They just respond to the signal input. In a D9 cabinet, you aren't going to get "subwoofer" frequency repsonse anyway. If you paid a lot more for these woofers than a simple replacement for the D9, then I would say either you misunderstood what was being installed or someone sold you a line of hooey. It's unlikely you are going to get any deeper bass out of these drivers than you did out of the original D9 woofers. If the replacements are spec'd similarly to the originals, then the enclosure will assure that no change in frequency response can occur. If the replacements are spec'd to have greater frequency extension, then it's still unlikely they will produce that extended bass response in the D9 cabinet. If you significantly change the specifications of the driver being used, you would have to re-design the enclosure around the specs for the new driver. If they didn't do that, then you're going to get prettty much the same bass extension as you did originally. Power handling has nothing to do with any of this.
I really don't know what you've been told or what you're trying to say with "2x4 ohms single voice coil". Normally, I would take "2x4 Ohms" to mean the driver has two voice coils with each being a 4 Ohm load. But you say these are "single coil" drivers", not dual voice coils. So explain what you're trying to say. Did the shop use a dual voice coil driver and connect the two voice coils together in series to make an 8 Ohm load? If so, then you still have a dual voice coil driver but you have a nominal eight Ohm load for that driver. That doesn't sound to me like the shop actually replaced the original driver with a driver with similar specs.
"500 watt capable" doesn't mean anything. A driver is capable of handling power until it's not. Since music is constantly changing and one 40Hz signal is not the same as another 40Hz signal, there is no such thing as a "power handling" spec that actually means anything. It certainly does not suggest you should go out and buy a 500 watt amp for your "500 watt" speakers.
Use whatever amp you were using with the D9's and, if the replacement drivers are truly equivalent to the originals, there shouldn't be a problem.