The Dummy's Guide to Speakers

Ohms and speaker output

In our research of internet-based freelance bullslingers, we often run across a type who will happily write (and in a few cases, film a video) of just about anything. That'd be fine IF the writers knew what they were talking about; but too often they simply don't. We don't know about you, but when we have a question we'd rather get an answer from someone who didn't have to look it up; especially if the person answering the question gets it wrong! Let's try an example: some poor guy out there wondered "How to Understand Subwoofers and Ohms."¹ Do you think he got a good answer from a philosophy student like Gwendolen Akard when she tried to reword an answer from a more authoritative source? In a word, no.

You know you won't get a very good answer from someone of Akard's skills when she opens with an introduction like

"Subwoofers and ohms are closely related, in that ohms are a measurement related to audio output, and subwoofers are an integral part of your audio system."

Oh, wow, ohms are a measurement related to audio output! that's like saying miles are a measurement related to fuel economy... Right away, you know that she's just rewording something she found on-line, as opposed to giving you the benefit of actual, you know, knowledge-type stuff. Gwen then goes on to prattle about basic electrical theory for a bit -- quite a while, in fact -- telling her readers that they must "Realize that an ohm is a unit of electrical resistance between two points of a conductor. A volt between these two points will produce a current of one ampere.  Define ampere, or amp, as a measure of an amount of electrical charge or current between the two points.  Define voltage as the electrical potential between the two points. It can be understood as the pressure behind the current... "

...and she continues in this vein for a while. We especially liked the blanket statement, 

"The fewer ohms your system has, the louder it will be..."

That statement, we suppose, has a grain of truth. What Gwendolen does with that "truth," however, is pretty much a crime. Since Akard clearly doesn't understand impedance ratings -- 4 ohm vs. 8 ohm -- she proves woefully unqualified to provide any actual advice for the key question: how do you wire a subwoofer into your system? Instead of talking about series and parallel wiring -- those concepts must be too nerdy for her -- Gwen instead waxes eloquent on experimenting with subwoofer placement and null spots.

Never mind that the original questioner didn't ask about subwoofer placement and probably didn't want a long soliloquy on Ohm's law (badly reworded from someone who understands it). No, the guy just wanted to know how to wire a 4-ohm subwoofer into an 8-ohm system.

And Gwendolen was right there to muddy the waters, confuse the issues, and blather on about useless information. Think that's sufficient for a Dumbass of the Day award? We do!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was    ehow.com/how_7647213_understand-subwoofers-ohms.html

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SI - ELECTRONICS