car speakers on home stereo

[bigtoe]

i want to fit some alpine 6x9 car speakers as satellite speakers on my home system. the amp has a switch on the back tor 4 or 8 ohm speakers. the existing speakers are kef 4 ohm. the car speakers are also 4 ohms. if i wire them together, do i set the switch to 8 ohms or leave it on 4? thanx in advance...

[mibn2cweus]

Connect the positive terminal of one speaker to the negative terminal of the other. Use the remaining terminals as marked to connect them to the amplifier.

Two 4 ohm speakers wired in series present an 8 ohm load. (Wired in parallel they would make a 2 ohm load which is unsuitable for many amplifiers.)

Two different types of speakers wired together in series or parallel are not usually compatible.

Car speakers usually require some type of enclosure to properly reproduce sound.

I'm not exactly clear on what you are after but hope this helps. Any details you care to provide are welcome.

[bigtoe]

thanx for advice,i intend to build enclosures for the car speakers. the amp is a NAD 3020e the existing speakers are KEF104Ab, the car speakers are alpine. i figured that 4 ohms + 4ohms didnt = 8 ohms as that seemed too logical. am i wasting my time and should i just buy some home sattelite speakers?

[mibn2cweus]

My advice is: Do nothing. You're done! The system you have is fine and adding speakers of any kind will not offer significant improvement but could overload/overheat your amplifier.

Your amp is now working into a 4 ohm load and is therefore delivering the greatest power it can safely. Wiring two 4 ohm speakers in series will produce an 8 ohm load and your amplifier will not be able to deliver the same power without severely clipping the signal.

Wiring two 4 ohm speakers in parallel results in a 2 ohm load which can cause instability and overload/overheat your amplifier.

Wiring two different speakers in series or parallel will most likely degrade the quality of sound of both and make impedance predictions difficult to ascertain without detailed testing and measurement.

If you wish to experiment with adding speakers I highly recommend driving them with a separate power amp.

http://colomar.com/Shavano/spkr_wiring.html

http://www.bcae1.com/spkrmlti.htm