HELP! with amplifier one easy quik question

[DGajre777]

i have a mtx class d mono amp
and a 12" kicker 4 ohm sub

i dont have the official numbers but the mtx amp is rated at putting out ~300 with a 2ohm load.. and ~200 with 4ohm.. the sub max watt is 300.. theres no way to get the most power from the amp/sub unless i get a new sub at 2 ohms correct? i hear these things about bridging but ive read with mono class d amps its bridged internally so this doesnt apply..

You can add another 4 ohm sub to your 12" OR get a new 4 ohm Dual voice coil sub. You don't have to worry about briding a mono amp, it will detect the load and provide more power if you set it up in 2 ohms.

 

[FSTRDNU]

the 480 amp i am using is mono, does this change anything you told me?

 

[FSTRDNU]

Hook it up like this:

1) Amp left channel
2) wire + of amp to + of 5 1/4 left speaker
3) wire - of 5 1/4 speaker to + of 6x9 left speaker
4) wire - of 6x9 speaker to - of left channel on amp

repeat same for the right channel. Doing this will drop your load to 2 ohms on each channel giving you 125 watts instead of 100 watts. The way you have wired them in your picture, you are running it in series, but splitting the power and your speakers are getting 50 watts each. If you do them the way I mentioned above, you'll get 75 watts each AND your channels with be routed correctly.

would i want to hook it up s the 6x9 is 1st, that way it gets more power than the 51/4?

 

[silvercoupe97]

link to my amp is on 1st post
it is actually a 2 channel amp
i am running 4 speakers of of it
2 6x9's running off of the (r) ( right) channel
2 5 1/4's running off of the (l) (left) channel

what do i have to do, so i can give the speakers more power, leaving all 4 connected?
this is what they look like now, but the rear speakers get distorted at high bass, at high volume, and i know it's not the limit of the speaker, they just need a little more power.

BTW theese are eclipse audio speakers, they are not cheap speakers, they will have way better sound with more amps, please show me how to do this, while leaving all 4 connected, thnaks

this is what it looks like now

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IMO, you're not looking for bass thumping sound just by judging the fact that you don't have subs and the fact that you're running 4 full range speakers on a 2 channel amp just tells me that you just want more "umph".
Does that amp have seperate left and right gain controls? If so then it would be optimal to keep your setup like you have it. Keeping it like this allows you to have control of power going to the respective speakers.
If that amp doesn't have seperate gain controls then I would keep all your right and left sides (in terms of speakers) on the right and left side of the amp. Because if you turn the gain up too high or too low, your speakers will still distort regardless of how you connect them.

Right side of amp...
---the + of both front and rear speakers connected together and - of the same connected in the same fashion.

Left side of amp...
---connect these wires the same way as the above mentioned.

You have now lowered your impedance to 2 ohms on each channel of the amp regardless of which set of speakers you connect together.
BTW, you mentioned that your speakers sound like they need more power...it's obvious that you're not supplying the max power to the speakers but that doesn't mean that you need more going to them. That "need more power" sound that you hear is the speakers distorting and they are trying to tell you to turn the volume down. That amp can only supply so much and you can't force anymore out of it...period. Not what you want to hear but there's no "buts" about it bud.

The gain know brings up another thing...
don't crank that thing up to 100%...think of it as your mbc or ebc.

To tune your amp, you should turn the gain on the amp all the way down and turn the volume on your headunit to the level of normal listening levels...next turn the gain on the amp up in little increments and stop turning it up once the speakers distort, then turn the gain back down until the distortion goes away. Once you've done this...you should have reached your amps optimal range. That amp and your speakers aren't matched so you really can expect to get too much of a kick ass sound out of the set...IMO.

 

[silvercoupe97]

Hook it up like this:

1) Amp left channel
2) wire + of amp to + of 5 1/4 left speaker
3) wire - of 5 1/4 speaker to + of 6x9 left speaker
4) wire - of 6x9 speaker to - of left channel on amp

repeat same for the right channel. Doing this will drop your load to 2 ohms on each channel giving you 125 watts instead of 100 watts. The way you have wired them in your picture, you are running it in series, but splitting the power and your speakers are getting 50 watts each. If you do them the way I mentioned above, you'll get 75 watts each AND your channels with be routed correctly.

BTW..this looks more like series to me than parrallel.

+to+
-to-
that's parallel

+to- or vice versa on both sides...
that's series.

 

[DGajre777]

I got my series and parallel mixed up You have them hooked up in parallel now, you need to hook them up in series (like I said earlier) to get 125 watts instead of 100. IF your amp is a mono amp, it will only have 1 channel on it, not 2 so I don't know how you have speakers wired on 2 channels anyway.

About the gain, yeah don't use it as a volume control. It is a button to reduce distortion. For you speakers, you need a good amp. A mono amp is used for subs not speakers.

 

[FSTRDNU]

it is a 2 channel mono amp it has R + - and L + -

 

[silvercoupe97]

the 480 amp i am using is mono, does this change anything you told me?

YES...
you will have a mono output to all 4 speakers! That's a sub amp. I would not recommend connecting that amp to all 4 or even 5 1/4s! Your 6x9s will handle it better. Doing this however will cause then to over power the 5 1/4s. Why did you get a mono amp again?
Get a 4 channel amp or the least a 2 channel amp. Not what you want to hear, I know but....

 

[FSTRDNU]

it sounds really nice

 

[silvercoupe97]

it sounds really nice

That's understandable...you've just increased the output volume to the set of speakers. Not anything I would do nor the way I would install nor have installed mono amps. But if it works for you, then...ok. Just note that there's really no way to connect those 4 to that amp without degrading quality sound.

BTW, I'm "quality" oriented...in case you couldn't tell

 

[DGajre777]

it is a 2 channel mono amp it has R + - and L + -

This doesn't make sense. Mono amp means 1 channel. If it is 2 channel it is not a mono amp.

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The picture above is an Alpine MONO amp. Notice there is only 1 speaker channel and one set of + and -

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The picture above is an Alpine 2 channel amp. Notice there are 2 speaker channels, 2 sets of + and - and a left channel and a right channel. You can bridge the 2 channel amp to run it in one channel, but that does NOT make a 2 channel amp a mono amp.

I hope this helps!

 

[silvercoupe97]

This doesn't make sense. Mono amp means 1 channel. If it is 2 channel it is not a mono amp.

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The picture above is an Alpine MONO amp. Notice there is only 1 speaker channel and one set of + and -

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The picture above is an Alpine 2 channel amp. Notice there are 2 speaker channels, 2 sets of + and - and a left channel and a right channel. You can bridge the 2 channel amp to run it in one channel, but that does NOT make a 2 channel amp a mono amp.

I hope this helps!

He's right FSTRDNU. I looked at that amp on the first page again and I'm sure that the amp that you have is a 2 channel also. So the above rules "re"apply.

 

[FSTRDNU]

it says mono right on it, but anyways i just returned it, and am using some old ass 670 watt, or 800, 4 channel, somehting like that

and i cant get the positive for sepaker number 2 to do anything, and 3 and 4 runa different output than 1, and 2, and the positive on 3 dont work either,, is it something because thier bridged?

i ahve all the negatives connected to the negative of channel 2, and all of the positives all running to channel 1, should i be doing this diferently? is there anythiung i can do to give them more power?

here we go again sorry

 

[BlueTalon95]

Pick up a copy of "The Car Stereo Cookbook" at Barnes & Noble. It has all the diagrams of what you're trying to do. The amp should say which channels to use if your bridging.

 

[DGajre777]

it says mono right on it, but anyways i just returned it, and am using some old ass 670 watt, or 800, 4 channel, somehting like that

and i cant get the positive for sepaker number 2 to do anything, and 3 and 4 runa different output than 1, and 2, and the positive on 3 dont work either,, is it something because thier bridged?

i ahve all the negatives connected to the negative of channel 2, and all of the positives all running to channel 1, should i be doing this diferently? is there anythiung i can do to give them more power?

here we go again sorry

Okay, back to the drawing board... you now have a 4 channel amp. Good

As for speaker connections, you first need to find out if your amplifier is DESIGNED to have output at 2 ohms. If it is, you can wire it in 2 ohms, If is not designed to operate in 2 ohms, you'll have to hook it up under 4 ohms which is a normal hook up.

Lets say that:
Channel 1 is front left
Channel 2 is front right
Channel 3 is rear left and
Channel 4 is rear right

For illustration purposes, I am going to use this 4 channel amp

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Option 1) Hook them up under a 4 ohm load. Take the + for the speakers and put each speaker in 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the amp. Take the - of the same speaker and put it in the - of the amp. Make sure the + and - of the same speaker go in the same channel. You DO NOT want the + of 3 going in - of 1 and so on.

Option 2) Hook them up under a 2 ohm load. As you know the 2 ohm load will give you more power than the 4 ohm load. Notice on the picture above, you see 'bridged'. To bridge the front channel (1 and 2), you have to take the + of channel 1 and - of channel 2 and connect the speakers to it.

The wiring will go like this:
+ of channel 1 to + of speaker 1
- of speaker 1 to + of speaker 2
+ of speaker 2 to - of channel 2

Repeat the same for channels 2 and 3.
+ of channel 3 to + of speaker 3
- of speaker 3 to + of speaker 4
+ of speaker 4 to - of channel 4

Hook them up, if it doesn't work, post again. Good luck

 

[FSTRDNU]

what if i hooked up all the +'s to the + of channel 1, and all of the negatives, to the - of channel 2, isnt this the same thing

 

[RedTurboEclipse]

this thread is turning out to great.. a lot of good info for us audio n00bs.. thanks for all the knowledgeble for helping out with our questions..

 

[DGajre777]

RedTurboEclipse - Glad to be of help

what if i hooked up all the +'s to the + of channel 1, and all of the negatives, to the - of channel 2, isnt this the same thing

No, it's not the same thing. If you hook up all the +s to the + of channel 1 and all the -s to the - of channel 2, you are running 4 speakers off of a bridged channel, so each of your speaker is getting 1/4 of the total power it should get. The other channels 3 and 4 are not being used. You can bridge channels 3 and 4 by hooking up speakers to the + of channel 3 and the - of channel 4.

The way I mentioned above are really the only 2 ways to hook it up 'correctly'. Yeah you could wire them in 15 other different ways, but you will end up losing power or damaging your speakers.

The attached picture below is a picture of the speakers wired in a 2 ohm load in a series connection. You can use both 5 1/4" speakers as speaker 1 and speaker 2 or you can use a 5 1/2 speaker as speaker 1 and a 6x9 as speaker 2. The same for 3 and 4, you can use both 6x9" speakers as speakers 3 and speaker 4 or you can use a 5 1/2 speaker as speaker 3 and a 6x9 as speaker 4.

If you have 2 seperate 'gain' switches for front and back, then hook up 5 1/4 for channel 1 and 2; and 6x9s for channels 3 and 4, that way you can try to eliminate distortion by using the gain control.

Got all that?

 

[FSTRDNU]

i wish i could do that, but the problem is that my head unit has only 1 input,(one red, one white) and the amp has 2 outputs, 1 red and white for channel 1 and 2, while another red and white for channel 3 and 4

so how can i get channel 3 and 4 to my head unit?

and why dont the + of channel 2, and the + of channel 3 work?

 

[DGajre777]

i wish i could do that, but the problem is that my head unit has only 1 input,(one red, one white) and the amp has 2 outputs, 1 red and white for channel 1 and 2, while another red and white for channel 3 and 4

so how can i get channel 3 and 4 to my head unit?

and why dont the + of channel 2, and the + of channel 3 work?

Actually, your head unit has 1 'output' and the amp has 2 'inputs'. You need a RCA Y adapter with 1 male and 2 males, you can get it from Radioshack or walmart. If you can't find it, you might have to get 1 male and 2 females and then get another adapter that has 2 males on both sizes. Or get something like the pic below from Radioshack, it does the same thing.

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Once you connect it, you can get channel 3 and 4 to work. If the channel 2 + doesn't work, don't worry about it, you don't need it for the bridged connection I showed in the pic above. After you get the Y adapter, if your + on channel 3 doesn't work, then you are in trouble since you can't bridge it without the +. You might want to looking into getting a 'working' amp.

 

[FSTRDNU]

i bought 2 rca splitters, i tell you how it goes later

 

[Attack Eagle]

no point in moving it then most people can't answer, the only way to lower your impedance with the stuff you have is hook the speakers up in parrallal (not recommended but many people do it), which means you lose left and right (can only run one channel bridged), but gain more power, depending on the amp you will probably have to bridge it in order to split the load amongest each channel for positive and negative parts of the cycle, with respect to where you would measure the zero reference, depending on the amp you have, it could have 2 rails or it could just be a single supply with the audio filtered by cap to eliminate the dc, and many other ways. look at your instructions cuz i am lazy like you and don't want to

that is just silly, drop the impedence in half by wiring in parallel and then split the "double power" between 2 speakers making each speaker wind up with the exact same power (only more distorted) that you had before.
Anyone who believes that wiring a pair of 4 ohm speakers in parallel ( to get 2 ohms and then running them off a single "double powered" channel makes them get anymore power has rocks in their head.



buy a 4 channel then bridge it as a 2 ch to the 6x9s...


or buy a Decent 4 channel (60+ w x4 rms) instead of a skimpy low performer and wire it normally.