Speaker wiring

Hi guys, i'm looking for some information about general speaker wiring in cabinets.
i've been building this mid-range unit ( www.dancetech.com/index.cfm?loading=pa&pa_loader=175 ) with some recycled parts, just to train myself a bit before starting anything serious.
Now about wiring, everything i know comes from this page --> www.bustedgear.com/faq_Speaker_wiring.htm <-- but some friend of mine told me that almost no one works with the series wiring, because if one of the speakers have any problem the other one will stop as well. This dear friend of mine haven't suggested me any other solution, though, so i came here looking for some help ;)

now, how do you usually wire 2 or more speakers to one cabinet's terminal?

thanks in advance,

petrikov

Your friend is right. Most speaker cabinets are not wired in series, though some are. It's fairly common for guitar cabinets to be wired in series for example. However, most two driver cabinets are wired in parallel. The website you mention clearly shows the difference between the two methods. In parallel wiring, each speaker gets wired directly to the jack. The positive terminal on the jack goes to the positive terminal on the speaker, the negative terminal on the jack goes to the negative terminal on the speaker. This is true for each speaker. In series wiring, the positive terminal from the jack goes to the positive terminal of the first speaker, then the negative terminal of the first speaker goes to the positive terminal of the second speaker. The negative terminal of the second speaker then goes to the negative terminal of the jack to complete the circuit.

Of course the other, and probably more important reason to choose between parallel and series wiring is because of the implications for the impedance of the cabinet. Two 8 ohm speakers wired in parallel equals a 4 ohm load. Two 8 ohm speakers wired in series equals a 16 ohm load.

thaaaank you very much bidgen, it was very well explained.

so basically if i want a total load of 8 ohms from a parallel wired speaker i would need two 16 ohms driver, right?

Yep, you got it. To achieve an 8 ohm load, you need two 16 ohm speakers wired in parallel. Or two 4 ohm speakers wired in series.

Good luck!
Dennis

perfect, thanks Dennis! that was very helpful