Posted by Hodel on April 17, 2002 at 18:04:51

In Reply to: Contemplation on combined Sensitivity(long) posted by dbeardsl on April 17, 2002 at 15:41:46:

When you connect 2 eight ohm loads in parallel, the solid state amplifier now has a 4 ohm load and delivers twice the current at the same voltage giving +3db more SPL, and double the power, with the same output voltage across the speakers. That's why when you see 4 ohm speaker effiencies, you need to make sure they're measureing with 1 watt thru the speaker to get the SPL measurement. Otherwise, with the 2.83 Volts across the 4 ohm speaker, you're actually putting 2 Watts thru the speaker not 1 Watt. However, solid state amps usually put out 65% more power into a 4 ohm load than an 8 ohm load, so it's probally all moot point anyway!!!