How to wire plate amp to driver?

The Tempest X product sheet has some diagrams that show how to wire the driver, You will just want the end result to be a 4ohm load so I would do the first one on page 5.
http://www.diycable.com/main/pdf/Tempest-X.pdf

Heres some other links that show how to wire all types of drivers and amps.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-6WqyO53...=DVC2x2&subs=2

Take the red wire from the amp and connect it to the positive (red) terminal on the sub. Take the black wire and connect it to the negative (black) terminal on the sub. You can connect the amp to either pair of terminal but not both. The amp comes with wire but you may need to add more depending on your enclosure. The sub comes with spring loaded terminals. Connecting the wires is as easy as pressing the terminal down, inserting the wire in the hole and releasing the terminal. The most difficult part of the process will be stripping about 1/2" of insulation from the ends of the wire. You can use a wire stripper, scissors, steak knife or even pull the insulation off with your teeth. Not that difficult.

-Robert

Hi, Aaron. You've basically got it right. Since the Tempest-X has two 8 ohm voice coils, you need to wire them together (in parallel--red to red, and black to black) to knock the impedance down to 4 ohms for the O-Audio plate amp.

No, you don't need to solder the speaker terminals. When you push the connectors in, they expose a rather large hole into which you can insert your wire. With the holes being that big, I'd be tempted to go with 12 gauge speaker wire from Lowe's or HD for 50 cents a foot, IIRC.

The amp is expecting you to use spade lugs to hook up to its fiendishly hidden connectors. You could solder the lugs to the wires if you wanted to and then hook them up. You could probably find a pair already made up, too, if you didn't want to bother.

Then you run the bare end of the "+" wire over to one red speaker terminal (which is already hooked to the other red terminal, per your diagram) and the "-" wire to the other terminal(s) and you're done!

Thanks for making me take a closer look at my components to make sure I wasn't lying to you. And good luck with your build. I'm still a few weeks off from getting my workshop organized and new sawhorse built, but I can hardly wait!

Don't. All you need is bare wire. In the one set of terminals that have 2 wires each, you just twist the wires together and insert them in the terminal hole.


100% correct.

-Robert

i had this same question when i read the wire diagram last year. aaron's artwork definitely is more clear. nice work aaron!

Getting closer. On the Tempest-X, each of the four terminals will have 1 wire connected to it. That the would be the wire connecting the positives and negatives to each other.

Two of those terminals (one + and one -) will also have another wire connected to them from the plate amp. That will make two wires in each of those terminals, and they can easily be twisted together as mentioned above. The holes in the terminals are so big you'll have no trouble at all.

It's the other end of that wire that I'm worried about, the end that connects to the amp. The spade lugs there are nowhere near as accessible as in Aaron's drawing--I wish they were. The O-Audio manual also makes them look like they're out in the open, but on my amp, at least, the wiring in front of them makes it really difficult for fat fingers like mine to get on them. And the holes in them are very small--maybe 22 gauge wire size?

That's the end that IMO needs spade lugs, which wouldn't be that difficult to push on. That's why I'd rather mess with those wires (putting spade connectors on the end of them) out in the open where you can get at them, and them push them onto the lugs on the amp. But YMMV.

You know that old expression about wishes and fishes? I can tell you for a fact that the only wire that came with my amp was a power cord. You might want to at least locate a nice pair of speaker cables with spade lug connectors as shown, in case yours arrives the same way.