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yeah, thanks a lot

2 ohms isn't "better" or "worse" than 4 ohms - it's just important information, so that you can properly match your speakers to your amplifier, or vice versa.

If you are familiar at all with Ohms Law, you can think of your amplifier as simply a "voltage source" - an AC one, but unlike the plugs in your wall at home, the voltage level varies with your volume knob rather than 110v, and the frequency is whatever waveform happens to be in your music rather than the 60hz of your home electricity.

You can think of the speaker as "the load" in that circuit - voltage travels out of the amplifier +, through the subwoofer, and back into the amplifier -.

Depending on what impedence the sub is (think of "resistance", but in AC terms, which means nothing other than the resistance varies a bit at different frequencies, rather than being a solid "____ ohms"), a certain amount of current will be drawn through the amplifier's circuitry, and through the subwoofer...
...and since power is voltage times current, you end up with a certain amount of "watts". Power. ;)

But think about that - the impedence of the sub is what causes current to flow through and from your amp.
Also, think of this:
What causes fuses to melt? Too much current, right?

Essentially, if you hook up too low of a load to your amplifier, you'll easily cause components in your amplifier to melt (if the fuse doesn't melt first, but that's on the input side), just like a fuse - that's bad!

But on the other hand, if you hook up a load on your amplifier that's a lot higher than the impedence the amp was designed for, not much current at all will flow - in other words, you won't get the wattage out of the amp that it WAS designed for. :(

So it's VERY important to match your sub to your amplifier.

And when it comes to that - it's RMS, aka "continuous" power that matters:
You don't care how many "watts" happened to occur when the amplifier was wired to a 18 volt electrical system, and some sadistic engineer wired the amp down to some sacrificial level, and the resulting spark that existed for a brief moment before the amplifier burst into flames produced some unrealistic amount of "power", do you?
Of course not!

What you care about is the amount of power you can actually GET from your amplifier, on a continuous, use it day in, day out, predictable basis.

And that means to ignore ANY power rating that doesn't specifically say "RMS" or "continous", because it's likely "peak" power, which is bogus flea-market garbage, simply enough.

[i](technically, RMS stands for "root means squared", but that's largely unimportant ;) )[/i]

Hope that helps!

RMS is how many watts your amp will put out. Its the number you want to use to match up your speakers. Say you have 2 300 watt rms speakers, then you would want a 600 watt RMS amp. I am sure you have heard, but don't look at max numbers. They are worthless, always look at the RMS.

The ohm load is the amount of resistance the speakers put into the circuit. The lower the ohm load, the more power you can get out of an amp. BUT not all amps are stable at lower ohm loads (2 ohms bridged and so on). So just like with RMS you want the final ohm load of the speakers to work with your amp.

There is tons of ways to wire speakers. Especially when you start talking dual voice coils, and adding in multiple speakers. If you look at the RF web site they have some really good diagrams showing speaker wiring, and what final ohm load you would have.

2 ohms is lower than 4 ohms. If an amp is stable at 4 ohm bridged, a 2 ohm speaker would not work. Hope this helps.

so far, you guys have been amazingly helpful, and i kinda feel like a pest, but i have even more questions...whats RMS?? and i know the impedance is measured in ohms. what i dont know is whether its better to have more or less ohms, and if ohms have to match up...for instance, will an amp that says "Min. Impedance Bridged 4 ohms" work with a sub who's impedance is 2 ohms??? this stuff is really confusing me