About that, as I've seen it mentioned a few times... running one voicecoil on a dual VC sub... doesn't that only use half the potential of the sub therefore making it a bit pointless?
I've got a DVC sub in my car, but I've only ever ran it with both voice coils connected. I might try it with one coil and see what difference it makes.
The system will have a peakier resonance (for the techie types, Qts increases because Qes increases). If you connect up one voice coil and short the other, things change from the original (both coils driven) situation, the driven voice coil is pushing and pulling, as normal it's trying to keep things at rest - it's trying to resist ANY motion! The net result is the overall peakiness of the resonance is the same as it was when both coils were driven, even though we are only using half the motor (driving one coil). The other coil helps "tame" the driven coil, so that the system basically behaves the same as before.
You might think that power handling is cut in half, but you'd be wrong. Power handling isn't compromised by a factor of 2; it's usually decreased 10-25%. The reason is that rarely are you current-limited by the gauge of the wire, and voice coils are wound concentrically so you still have the entire thermal mass working for you. Just that now all the power is dissipated in a single voice coil (typically two of four layers) so you may end up with an inert, non-conducting thermal mass insulating one side of the voice coil. This does not halve power handling, but can reduce it somewhat.
If you are using an AB Class amplifier (ie a standard 2 channel that is 2 ohm stable at bridged) then running the woofer as a 4 ohm woofer is the best way in my opinion. Remember that when you wire the woofer to the impedance you desire then you must take into account that a 2 channel amp will half that ohm load on the bridged setting.
If you are using a D Class Mono block amp then whatever impedance you put in will be what the amp actually sees. These amplifiers do not half the impedance like AB class amps. In this case then you could wire the woofer in a 2 ohm load (given that the amp is 2 ohm stable) and that will maximize the woofer and the amp.
If you are running 2 woofers on a 2 channel then i would wire both woofers in 8 ohms EACH and then mono into the amplifier for the most bass. If you are looking to have more quality sound then run them in 4 ohms EACH and go stereo (left + and - going straight to left woofer and right + and - going straight to the right woofer) into the amplifier.
