What is an Ohm, is 8 better than 4

[rackoon]

OK here is the deal,
    I am building a three sided cocktail table and want to have a loud and proud sounding speaker set up. I want to go the way of a car amp and a couple of 6x9s.

    So I bought 2 6x9s at radio shack for $8 a piece. They are rated at 4 Ohms and 90 watts max. When I went to buy some grills at arcadeshope.com, I saw some Williams speakers at $9--- 8 OHMS and 15 watts. Did I mess up?

[whammoed]

No, car speakers are usually 4Ohm and home stereo is usually 8.  The lower the Ohms the more power they get from the amp (so long as the amp is rated for them)

[rackoon]

Thanks Whammoed, you are all wise.

I was going to use a cheap $25 amp and the speakers are car speakers. So I guess I'm fine.

By the way, I read somewhere that you were adding lighted buttons in the  Whammocade. Got any pics yet?

[Ken Layton]

Remember that electronics rule-of-thumb when it comes to speakers:

The lower the impedance of the speaker, the more the distortion.

The higher the impedance of the speaker the less the distortion and the better the quality of the sound.

[whammoed]

Thanks Whammoed, you are all wise.

I was going to use a cheap $25 amp and the speakers are car speakers. So I guess I'm fine.

By the way, I read somewhere that you were adding lighted buttons in the

[RayB]

Most old game cabinets used 8 ohm speakers

[MaximRecoil]

OK here is the deal,

[Lilwolf]

stupid question... but could you put two 4ohm speakers in serial to make them the same as an 8ohm speaker?

Seems like you should (electronically).

[MaximRecoil]

stupid question... but could you put two 4ohm speakers in serial to make them the same as an 8ohm speaker?

Seems like you should (electronically).

Yes you can. Or, you can wire two 8 ohm speakers in parallel to get a single 4 ohm load. Or you can wire four 4 ohm speakers in series/parallel to get a 4 ohm load, etc. People do stuff like that all of the time with multiple subwoofers/voice coils to arrive at a desired load for their particular amplifier.