OHMs?

[JessyMcK]

What does it mean? What is better? 4ohm 6ohm 8ohm. Help me out, I know nothing about this.

 

[Francious70]

Neither is "better". The lower the resistance (the lower # of ohms) the easier it is for the amp to push power to the speaker. On many home amps a 8 ohm amp is preferable. In car audio the prefered speker impedance is 4 ohms.

That's not to say that home amps can't power a 4 ohm speaker, but most home amps don't like to.

Paul

 

[JohnA]

It is the electrical unit of resistance. The value of resistance through which a potential of one volt will maintain a current of one ampere.

Ok layman's terms...a speaker hooked up to an amp causes an electrical resistance. The smaller the number the less resistance there is, the higher the number the harder the amp has to work.

Most speakers range from 4 to 8 Ohm's

Now you may be thinking that you should just go with the lowest Ohm rating you can find...well you shouldn't.

Think of it like a garden hose, a regular open end would be an 8 Ohm speaker, and when you add a nosel to it to get a smaller faster stream of water that would be a 4 Ohm speaker. The problem is that a lower Ohm rating might cause the amp to overheat and shut down, but a large Ohm rating like 16 or more (if you had the speakers wired wrong) would lead to a lack of volume to the speakers.

Does that help?

 

[markw]

Ain't no "better" or "worse"

It's simply an approximate gauge of the load a speaker presents to an amp. Generally, the higher the number, the happier the amp will be. And, this is no gauge of how good a speaker is or how it will sound.

Generally, the lesser amps will have more of a problem with the lower impedances. Just make sure your amp can handle whatever load the speaker you choose is.

 

[Francious70]

And just for future reference, R=V/I or Resistance = Volts/Current(Amps)

Check this out.

Paul