Dual Voice Coil or Single Voice Coil? Which is right for me?

As a store owner since 1994, I’ve heard it a million times: “I want a dual voice coil sub.” So I do my job and ask “why is it that you think you need a DVC sub?” The answer every time is the same: “Well they’re louder!”

I guess it is natural to think that. If one coil is loud, 2 coils are louder. Unfortunately, that is not the way it works. All things being equal, an SVC sub and a dvc sub are virtually identical in output.

Why make them if they produce the same output? Simple… To be able to derive the maximum power that an amplifier can safely produce. Let me explain…

For the purpose of this post, we will assume that all individual coils are 4 ohms.

Suppose a customer has a 1 channel (monoblock) amplifier that produces it’s maximum power output of 500 watts when presented with a 1 ohm impedance. If presented with a 2 ohm load, it produces 250 watts and a 4 ohm load produces 125 watts. You have decided that you want 2 12 inch subs.

If you take 2 single voice coil (SVC) subs (4 ohms each) and hook them up in parallel, you end up with a 2 ohm load. You are essentially using half of your amplifier. Not an optimum situation…

Instead, you would want to use dual voice coil subwoofers (DVC). Again, assuming that each coil is 4 ohms, we can wire the individual coils on each sub in parallel, in essence, creating a 2 ohm sub. Now you wire these 2 subs to each other in parallel and you end up with a 1 ohm load. Your amplifier is now seeing it optimal load and will put out it maximum power of 500 watts.

There are a ton of variations to this. You may have an monoblock amp that produces max power at 2 ohms instead of 1. In this case, 2 SVC subs would do the job. And it gets even trickier when you have an amp that produces max power into a 4 ohm load.

Sound complicated? It can be. We see lots of people every month that have mismatched amp and sub configurations. These people are robbing themselves of the power and output that they paid for. As a specialty store, we have experts on staff that know car audio like the back of their hand. When we put a system together, our customers get every watt that they are paying for.

When building your system, take the time to visit your local specialist. They are the true experts. Will you pay a little more. Maybe. But you can rest assured that you will get a great value and a system that is configured for best performance.

Posted by Mitchell Schaffer

Owner of Mobile Edge in Lehighton, PA

Mobile Edge is a leading provide of quality aftermarket accessories and installations in Eastern Pennsylvania

www.MobileEdgeOnline.com

mitch@mobileedgeonline.com