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2 Speaker 8 Ohm Wire Diagram

By Sammy Bones

The wiring diagram below shows how to wire 2 speakers that are 16 ohms each to get a 8 ohm total load.. This wiring is called parallel wiring.
Note: It is impossible to wire 2- 16ohm speakers to make a 16 ohm load
 When wiring any speaker cabinet, please make sure that the connections are not loose. If you are soldering them you do not want a cold solder joint. If you are using slip on solderless/crimp paddles, make sure the connection is tight which may require sqeezing them with a pair of pliers to make them very tight. When I use these connectors, I still solder the cable to the crimp part just to make it extra solid.

What gauge speaker wire to use: 
I recomend using at least 16 gauge speaker wire on most everything. If you are wiring guitar amps, then I like  12 gauge speaker wire  the best. but 14 or 16 gauge will still do fine. Note: The smaller the gauge number, the THICKER the wire is. So, a 12 gauge wire is thicker than a 14 gauge wire.

How to Check Speaker ohms:

 To test a speaker or speaker cabinet, use a digital multi-meter. Put the leads from the meter directly on the speaker, or if using more than one speaker, you can put the leads on the speaker input jack on the cabinet. The red lead goes to the positive and the black lead goes to the negative. On a 1/4" speaker or guitar cable, the tip of the cable is the positive and the sleave is the negative. When using avoltage meter to determine if the ohms are correct, the reading on the multi-meter will usually be slightly under what you want. For example, an 8 ohm wiring may only read 6.8 ohm, or a 16 ohm wiring may only read 12.9ohm. This is perfectly normal and is what you want.

Testing Speaker Phase
To test the phase of the wiring, a little trick that I use is to take a 9 volt battery and touch the negative (-) side of the battery to the negative speaker wire. Then, while watching the speaker cone, touch and release the positive side of the battery(+) to the positive speaker wire. This will make a loud popping sound from the speaker and the speaker cone should push out when the battery touches, then back again when the battery releases from the wire. If the speaker is wired INCORRECTLY, then the speaker cone will pull back insead of pushing out when you touch the positive side of the battery to the positive side of the speaker wire. If this happens, you dont have to rewire the whole cabinet, just flip the 2 wires that are attatched to the speaker jack. Also, once the jack is in place, I like to plug in a speaker cable and touch the battery again to the end of the speaker wire to verify the whole thing is in the correct phase.

For more info or advice, check out the Sammy Bones website ""


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