C2 Radio Speaker

[Brandon K.]

I just purchased a repro radio speaker from Long Island and out of curiousity put an ohmmeter on it, and it registers one ohm. Anyone know what the deal is? The repro does have an external transformer attached. I know the originals were supposed to be 10 ohms (and my original needing reconing registers about 4 ohms). I am using a digital meter, so I dont think the meter is bad. thanks!
Brandon

[Mike G.]

Re: C2 Radio Speaker

Brandon: My original speaker measures 1.2 ohms. Do not expect to read 10 ohms, because this is the IMPEDANCE, not the resistance of the speaker.
Impedance is the non-reactive characteristic of resistance and can't be measured with your VOM.

[Brandon K.]

Thanks Mike! *NM*

[Jack H.]

Nice reply, Mike!

To add on to what Mike's saying, the impedance of speakers is ALSO defined at a given AC voltage frequency (typically 1 KHz) and the rating is meant to express the 'equivalent resistance' the component displays to AC waveforms driving its audio output...

So, when you put a conventional ohm meter across the speaker terminals of a Corvette speaker, you're measuring BOTH the DC resistance of the speaker drive coil windings as well as the DC resistance of the matching transformer (inductor) attached to the speaker....

[Larry L.]

Re: Nice reply, Mike!

If you notice the transformer on the repop parts is not as big as the orig.
I used the orig. tranformer on a replacement speaker and it works great. Sounds pretty good for a single channel system.
The impedance is one thing and the saturation of the transformer is something else again. If there is not enough IRON and not enough laminations or wrong material there is a problem.
You will notice that at high listening levels the sound gets mushey.

Larry Linder 22779