Amp chassis grounding question

[I Like Waffle]

This may be a stupid question but i thought about it the other day and decided to ask. Back probably 4 years ago when i installed my first amp i did alot of reading and stuff, and thought i read somewhere that the amp chassis itself needs to be mounted on wood or plastic or something not electrically conductive. This made sense to me so ive always made sure not to mount an amp straight to the chassis as the screws would ground it, and even now that i have alot of installing experience, i never bothered to ask again due to that. Ive heard some crazy shit about this topic from other people so i need to ask the experts //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

Yesterday when i was doing an install on a honda i mounted the amp on the rear seat using 3/4 MDF so it wouldnt ground out due to the metal frame construction, which is what got me thinking about it. I see a shitload of people with their amps mounted wherever, on the seat (im sure without an mdf or plastic barrier), on the trunk floor, just dangling in the trunk, etc. What exactly happens when its mounted to a chassis ground? Or touches the car frame or anything? Im gonna assume its something like the dc can try and ground itself through the amp and majorly **** it up? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif It seems logical to me that this is the right way to do it, but if im actually overdoing it then itd be alot easier when im installing shit if i didnt have to use MDF or something whenever doing a different mount //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

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[PaulD 10+ year member]

depends on what ground potential the amp's chassis is. I had an amp one time that stayed on ALL the time if I bolted it down to the chassis.