Greetings,

I am working on upgrading the stereo system in my '06 G35 sedan. Since I an not a full time electronics installer, I am slowly prepping my components prior to install.

Last night, I was making the subwoofer/box wiring connections to the Polk Audio DB1040 DVC (Dual Voice Coil) subwoofer. I am pairing it with an Infiniti 1300a amplifier. All the research I conducted indicates that I can wire this subs DVC's in PARALLEL and it will present a 2 ohm load to the amplifier (which it can safely handle and provide a better power output than a 4 ohm load).

According to the research I conducted, for wiring in Parallel, I am supposed to connect the Positive terminals in the following fashion:

Amp Positive to first voice coil positive to second voice coil positive

The negative terminals are connected in the same fashion:

Amp Negative to first voice coil negative to second voice coil negative

However, I was not able to find a photo of how these connections are supposed to be physically made (cable wise) so here is what I did:

From the box's speaker terminal cup I have (1) one piece of 12GA speaker wire going into a "tube" style crimp connector. On the other side I have two (2) pieces of 12GA speaker wire twisted together and crimped opposite the one piece. I then attached connectors to the two (2) pieces of wire twisted together. These are the pieces I connected to the subs positive terminals.

In the end, I basically have a Y shaped cable in which the single ends goes to the amp (or in this case, the speaker terminal cup inside the box) positive/negative and the double ends each get connected to a positive/negative (respectively) terminal on each DVC.

I did the same for the negative terminals.

The question I have is this:

Is that the proper way physically make the connections or is there some other way (i.e. - One cable from speaker terminal cup on box, to first positive terminal then from first positive terminal to second positive terminal)

I have attached a diagram of my wiring in (although I will state right now, for the record, that I am not a good "schematic artist" nor am I a professional electrician).

Any guidance/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Provided the length of the cables isn't several feet (which in a DVC it'll be inches) the resistance won't make much of a difference if you do a Y or a chain. The resistance of the coils themselves in comparison to the length of wire makes the Y or chain choice pretty much irrelevant.

That said, I'd say stick with the Y, since, theoretically that's best.

I did the chain method when I did a pair of DVC's in a friend's car, they were firing from behind both wheel wells in a last-gen firebird. I put my head between them, on lowest gain, mind you, and my brain just stopped working between them. It was fierce low-end. Way more than I'd want, but it worked just fine, is the point.

 

Wrathernaut,

Thanks for the response. I figured the Y set-up probably would work, but since it has been a while since I took on this type of project, I figured I'd better check with people who are more experienced than I am.

Thanks again.

 

No problem, just curious though, what sort of box are you dropping this into?

 

Dropping it into a Metra 1 cubic foot box.

 

The length of the cables could be a 100 feet and it really wouldn't make much difference at all. With your 12AWG speaker wire (in Y-configuration) in 100 foot length, the resistance of the wire would be approx. 0.3 ohms. (200ft/1000ft * 1.588 ohms - See AWG Chart)

With 300Wrms output, you would then divide that power between speaker wire and speaker coil and get 39W and 261W respectively.

Comparing speaker level output between 300W and 261W, the sound dB change in only 0.6dB.

You won't be able to hear a difference of 0.6dB.

Of course, with 100 foot of wire (200 foot wire loop), you will have a higher AC impedance (mostly inductance) which will slow your edges down and reduce frequency response, but then again, with a subwoofer, this probably wouldn't make any difference either.

 

You and your science!