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Wiring, Electrical & Installation
4-Channel Amp Wired to 1 Sub Continually Overheats
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<blockquote data-quote="blazian87" data-source="post: 8656521" data-attributes="member: 574798"><p>I'll try to answer the best I can. You already know a 4 ch amp is meant for speakers so it just doesn't make sense to use it for sub duties. The main reason this doesn't work is because of the lack of wattage that's going into your speaker. Planet audio is known to be a cheap brand that likely does less than rated. There's nothing wrong with cheap budget amps but the fact that this amp is rated at 50w x 4 @ 4ohms, so can you guess how much that translates to in the real world? With a single voice coil 4 ohm, you're pretty much stuck with 4 ohm load. When the speaker actually plays music, the impedance will rise higher than that and likely only end up being about half the power you think it is. When you bridge 2 channels together, you're basically opening up all pathways to allow both channels to work as one big voltage rail. You might think it's a good idea because it effectively doubles your power. The downside is that this creates way more heat and if your gains are set too high, it can eventually cause it to fail over time from excess heat. This is very inefficient because the other 2 channels are being unused which is a complete waste. So on paper you have 1 channel giving you 50w and bridging it with channel 2 will give you 100w. Either way you're still underpowering the sub. This is one of the easiest ways to blow your amp or sub or both. Whichever model pioneer you have, it would be happier with more headroom. Something like 500w or even a 300w mono amp will already make a huge difference in output and clarity. You don't want to run an amp at full power at all times, this just creates excess heat and premature fail. The bigger amp you have, the less work it has to do for the same output. Check out bigblank69's youtube channel, he has a bunch of dyno amp tests on a bunch of popular budget amps. If you look around the classified section often or look on craigslist or online ads, you can sometimes find some hidden gems around. I helped a friend find a used oldschool DD audio 1200w @ 1 ohm for $80 locally from classified section on this site. Helped another friend find a used Boss audio amp I saw on bigblank69's dyno tests that did a legit 1300w @ 1 ohm for about $100 shipped on amazon. It's hard to find good power at 4 ohm for cheap so getting a dual 2 ohm sub is the most cost effective way to get more power for cheap.</p><p></p><p>So you said you had 4 gauge OFC for power and ground. That is more than good enough for anything up to 1200w so swapping them will make no difference in your case. Making your ground shorter will help with resistance but it won't make a difference in preventing your amp to protect.</p><p></p><p>Here's a simple analogy... It's kinda like having 4 glasses of milk half full vs 1 overflowing glass of milk while the other 3 glasses are sitting there doing nothing. Same concept with 2 overflowing and 2 empty glasses. Screw all that and get a tall glass with as much milk as you please and never let it overflow. Or like have you ever used a vacuum at home when running all your high powered electronics? or run your heater and computer simultaneously for a long period of time? This is pretty much what happens when your amp goes to protect.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="blazian87, post: 8656521, member: 574798"] I'll try to answer the best I can. You already know a 4 ch amp is meant for speakers so it just doesn't make sense to use it for sub duties. The main reason this doesn't work is because of the lack of wattage that's going into your speaker. Planet audio is known to be a cheap brand that likely does less than rated. There's nothing wrong with cheap budget amps but the fact that this amp is rated at 50w x 4 @ 4ohms, so can you guess how much that translates to in the real world? With a single voice coil 4 ohm, you're pretty much stuck with 4 ohm load. When the speaker actually plays music, the impedance will rise higher than that and likely only end up being about half the power you think it is. When you bridge 2 channels together, you're basically opening up all pathways to allow both channels to work as one big voltage rail. You might think it's a good idea because it effectively doubles your power. The downside is that this creates way more heat and if your gains are set too high, it can eventually cause it to fail over time from excess heat. This is very inefficient because the other 2 channels are being unused which is a complete waste. So on paper you have 1 channel giving you 50w and bridging it with channel 2 will give you 100w. Either way you're still underpowering the sub. This is one of the easiest ways to blow your amp or sub or both. Whichever model pioneer you have, it would be happier with more headroom. Something like 500w or even a 300w mono amp will already make a huge difference in output and clarity. You don't want to run an amp at full power at all times, this just creates excess heat and premature fail. The bigger amp you have, the less work it has to do for the same output. Check out bigblank69's youtube channel, he has a bunch of dyno amp tests on a bunch of popular budget amps. If you look around the classified section often or look on craigslist or online ads, you can sometimes find some hidden gems around. I helped a friend find a used oldschool DD audio 1200w @ 1 ohm for $80 locally from classified section on this site. Helped another friend find a used Boss audio amp I saw on bigblank69's dyno tests that did a legit 1300w @ 1 ohm for about $100 shipped on amazon. It's hard to find good power at 4 ohm for cheap so getting a dual 2 ohm sub is the most cost effective way to get more power for cheap. So you said you had 4 gauge OFC for power and ground. That is more than good enough for anything up to 1200w so swapping them will make no difference in your case. Making your ground shorter will help with resistance but it won't make a difference in preventing your amp to protect. Here's a simple analogy... It's kinda like having 4 glasses of milk half full vs 1 overflowing glass of milk while the other 3 glasses are sitting there doing nothing. Same concept with 2 overflowing and 2 empty glasses. Screw all that and get a tall glass with as much milk as you please and never let it overflow. Or like have you ever used a vacuum at home when running all your high powered electronics? or run your heater and computer simultaneously for a long period of time? This is pretty much what happens when your amp goes to protect. [/QUOTE]
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4-Channel Amp Wired to 1 Sub Continually Overheats
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