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Why aren't there more 2-ohm speakers?
in article , Scott Gardner at
wrote on 1/3/04 4:53 AM:
I would think that a speaker company could make a bundle offering a
line of 2-ohm component sets and coaxials. As a consumer with an
aftermarket amp, you could double your power by replacing your 4-ohm
speakers with 2-ohm speakers. Or, if you were building a system from
scratch, you could use a smaller amp to get the same power by going
with the lower-impedance speakers.
From an engineering standpoint, would 2-ohm speakers be any harder to
design or more expensive to build? Are there any other technical
drawbacks to designing a 2-ohm speaker?
There are drawbacks to building 2 ohm speakers. Getting the lower impedance
requires heavier gauge voice coil wire. This, in turn, increases moving
mass. Besides lowering efficiency (not voltage sensitivity which will
obviously increase somewhat) high coil mass is not desirable on drivers with
relatively light cones. The increased gauge may also require opening of the
gap, reducing flux and consequently further reducing efficiency. There are
workarounds for the problems, such as using an edge wound voice coil or
copper clad aluminum wire. But these will add to cost.
Then there's the issue of larger crossover inductors and potential losses in
the speaker wires themselves. Besides, high power at 4 ohms is pretty easy
to find these days, given that virtually all amps use dc-dc conversion to
obtain high voltage swing. I really don't see the point.
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