8 sp12f speakers - parallel vs series

[treo650]

Hello, from what I read and understand, 8 sp12f, connect parallel to the m1 gold, that's 4ohms.

1) What's the difference (or advantage, or none) to run 4 paralleled circuits of two, in series?


another question
2) say, if I want the bedroom 1, 2, 3, and 4 to be lower volume than the main public home areas, how should I wire it?

3) and, if say, bedroom 1 requires a "sleep silent" time, where no events, such as "door open" --only emergency intruder alerts are sounded, how will I go about?

 

[tmbrown97]

There's a whole science to the parallel vs. series wiring that goes into speakers... I can't summarize it for you in one line, but it'd be worth googling and experimenting. Just make sure you never take the ohms too low - too high won't hurt anything. There are a lot of calculators on the web worth searching for but they won't go too complex - you'll have to learn the basics and understand how to combine both parallel and series.

As long as you're not screwing up impedance by going too low, you can use a relay to cut a bedroom speaker out. If you want to keep the volume on the rest of the speakers from jumping up slightly, use a resistor instead of just eliminating the speaker. You'll have to study up on appropriate rules to turn speakers on/off, but it's totally doable.

 

[Sandpiper]

Hello, from what I read and understand, 8 sp12f, connect parallel to the m1 gold, that's 4ohms.

1) What's the difference (or advantage, or none) to run 4 paralleled circuits of two, in series?


another question
2) say, if I want the bedroom 1, 2, 3, and 4 to be lower volume than the main public home areas, how should I wire it?

3) and, if say, bedroom 1 requires a "sleep silent" time, where no events, such as "door open" --only emergency intruder alerts are sounded, how will I go about?

Speakers in parallel will receive more power (will be louder) than those in series. If you want some speakers to be quieter than others, wire those in series. You can experiment to get the effect you want. If you want some to be silent at the same time others are not, you'll have to use a relay, driven by a rule. The rule would be set to turn the relay on only during alarms.

 

[gatchel]

Hello, from what I read and understand, 8 sp12f, connect parallel to the m1 gold, that's 4ohms.

1) What's the difference (or advantage, or none) to run 4 paralleled circuits of two, in series?


another question
2) say, if I want the bedroom 1, 2, 3, and 4 to be lower volume than the main public home areas, how should I wire it?

3) and, if say, bedroom 1 requires a "sleep silent" time, where no events, such as "door open" --only emergency intruder alerts are sounded, how will I go about?

1)
4 Circuits of two (paralleled) would be 16 ohms per circuit

4 16 ohm circuits in series would be 64 ohms load on the amp of the M1, too high IMHO.

2) Maybe experiment a bit or add a volume control with impedance matching or selection.

3) You could short or open bedroom 1 with a relay from the elk driven with a rule. It really depends on how you wire everything else. Just make sure you DON"T wire a dead short across the amp of the M1. Short out only 1 speaker and have other speakers or other parallel strings in series with the short. This will change the volume slightly on the other speakers.

You should really draw out the ideas and possibilities and calculate the final load on the amp with and without the switched bedroom circuit.

If it were me and I were setting this up with 4 zones I would wire them all in parallel. 4 speakers would be an 8 ohm load on the amp. I would use a relay with a 32 ohm dummy load (5th load) rated to handle the wattage. This way no matter which way the relay is switched the amp will see the same load and the volume will stay the same.


4 parallel would be 8 ohms
3 parallel would be 10.667 ohms
2 parallel would be 16 ohms

 

[treo650]

My installer, a member on this site, suggested to output speaker 1 + 4 (two speakers that require a sleep time), to OUTPUT3

From there, we will write rules for a "quiet sleep time" on the RP software...

thoughts?

"Okay, I understand that you want Bedroom 1 and Bedroom 4 speakers to have a disable feature. You will need to write rules controlling OUT 3 to determine when to disable these speakers. There will be a slight change in the volume level from the remaining speakers when these rules are active."

 

[Sandpiper]

That will work. Output 3 is just a dry contact....same as a relay....