Best way to amp 2 subs and a pair of coaxials?

[Justinw303 10+ year member]

I ws initially planning on only having one amp to power 2 RE8's. But, after listening to the pair of Alpine Type S coaxials I recently bought being powered off my Head Unit, I really want an amp to push the speakers to their full potential.

A 4-channel amp is out of the question. The amp I was looking at for my RE8's is a 2-channel Audiobahn that pushes 400 watts x 1 bridged.

I got to looking around for an amp for my coaxials, and I thought this one would be good:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-QIIthHQFsAn/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=110&id=features_and_specs&i=236RT202

My question, besides wondering if that's a good amp, is how am I supposed to hook both these amps up? Can I connect both power cables to the positive battery terminal? Is there anything else I would need to know?

As you can see, I've never hooked up an amp before, so forgive me if I seem like a newb. I am. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Click to read more...

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Might I ask why a four channel amp is out of the question?

Can I connect both power cables to the positive battery terminal?

You need a distribution block to split the incoming power lead to both amplifiers, and that block needs to be fused if the wire gauge drops. Make sure each amp is grounded properly to a bare metal chassis ground that shows close to 0 ohms on a DMM.

Run the remote turn on lead from one amp to the other.

Finally, run two sets of RCA interconnects the amps - one from the sub preout, and one from the front preout.

And of course, run speaker wire from the coaxials to the front stage amp.

 

[Justinw303 10+ year member]

Might I ask why a four channel amp is out of the question?
You need a distribution block to split the incoming power lead to both amplifiers, and that block needs to be fused if the wire gauge drops. Make sure each amp is grounded properly to a bare metal chassis ground that shows close to 0 ohms on a DMM.

Run the remote turn on lead from one amp to the other.

Finally, run two sets of RCA interconnects the amps - one from the sub preout, and one from the front preout.

And of course, run speaker wire from the coaxials to the front stage amp.

Can you think of a 4-channel amp that can send 40-50 watts to my coaxials and 400 watts to my subs at the same time? Plus, setting the gain will be too hard... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

All that distribution block talk scares me... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif I think I'll just go with one amp for the subs.

 

[kuijo 10+ year member]

Memphis has an amp like that.

 

[kuijo 10+ year member]

http://216.197.123.136/products/details.asp?cat=&id=29&p=2

a very nice amp as well.

 

[stones 10+ year member]

A distro block is a little brass dohickey that just splits your power cable from the battery, nothing scary about it, goto Wal-Mart and have a look at them.

 

[scrappy 10+ year member]

you could get a kicker 550.3. Its got two speaker outputs and a sub one too. Like this one here http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5789711850&category=79823&ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1

 

[Justinw303 10+ year member]

A distro block is a little brass dohickey that just splits your power cable from the battery, nothing scary about it, goto Wal-Mart and have a look at them.

How hard would it be to install the two amps, on a scale 1-10, keeping in mind that I'm a rookie.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

How hard would it be to install the two amps, on a scale 1-10, keeping in mind that I'm a rookie.

3

Installing amps isn't hard at all.

 

[Ignatowski 5,000+ posts]

Memphis Belle is a beast

Kicker's 550.3 and 700.5

search out multi channel amps

Directed,MTX to name a few