Best way to wire a center speaker?

[reible82nd 10+ year member]

I had an extra mid from a Dynaudio 220mkii component set laying around and thought I could use it as a center channel to give me a bit more midrange up front. I know I can't wire it to my head unit as it's a S4. I'm running my front comps with a PPI PC2400.2 at 4 ohms stereo.

What I thought about doing is taking the negative from the Dyn and hooking it up to the negative midrange output on my left-front comp crossover, then hooking the positive to the positive midrange output on the right-front crossover. I'm on a budget and don't want to spend a bunch of money but want to make sure this will work. If doing this will lower the ohm load I'm not worried as the PC2400.2 can operate at 2 ohms stereo...the only thing I'm worried about is screwing up the imaging on my left and right fronts and/or changing the output of the amp from stereo to mono. In that case my amp couldn't handle 2 ohms.

If need be I'll wait and buy a little amp to run it, but thought I could see if I can get it to work with what's already in the car.

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[maylar 10+ year member]

That would be bridging the speaker and probably destroy the crossovers. Bad idea.

You could do it across 2 unused HU channels, they're already bridged. Wut's an S4?

 

[pickup1 5,000+ posts]

Audi...s4

 

[O.G. D-Wet 10+ year member]

s4=single 4ohm

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

Some amps have a "tri-mode" that lets you do what you want. If the manual doesn't specifically say you can do it, don't.

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

You will have no imaging if you wire up a "dumb" center channel. Center channels are supposed to play information that's only recorded in mono.

 

[reible82nd 10+ year member]

I pretty much just want to add some extra mid to the front, plus I wanted to use that mid and it looks good in the install. Imaging doesn't concern me too much, I did have both front channels on my deck going to it but read some articles and threads that scared the crap out of me so I unhooked it. I'll have to read the manual...unless someone knows if an Eclipse CD5435 can do it.

 

[pickup1 5,000+ posts]

take a left (+) and right (-)...mono signal front the amp before the crossover and let it roll off natually.

 

[reible82nd 10+ year member]

Oh ok, so splice into the L+ and R- leads coming from the mids before they reach the crossover. That makes sense. Thanks Doug!

 

[reible82nd 10+ year member]

Just read the manual for the HU, nothing mentioned about using the front channels in parallel so I'm not messing with that.

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

take a left (+) and right (-)...mono signal front the amp before the crossover and let it roll off natually.

Which would be 400 watts bridged. Umm...

Just read the manual for the HU, nothing mentioned about using the front channels in parallel so I'm not messing with that.

Cross wiring between HU channels will give you a mono signal at normal HU power level. And no it's not in the manual.

 

[pickup1 5,000+ posts]

He could buy a small amp too.

 

[reible82nd 10+ year member]

OK, so I can take both positives and negatives from the LF and RF outputs of the HU and run them to the mid and I won't fry my HU? That's what I did originally but read that doing so would put too much stress on the HU.

 

[T.I.K. 10+ year member]

OK, so I can take both positives and negatives from the LF and RF outputs of the HU and run them to the mid and I won't fry my HU? That's what I did originally but read that doing so would put too much stress on the HU.

Break the rules, live a little bit, kid.

 

[reible82nd 10+ year member]

Break the rules, live a little bit, kid.

LMAO! Thanks for the inspiring words friend, I may give it a try. It sounded fine when I had it hooked up to the HU before, plus I'm running an 80hz HPF on the HU anyways so the amp isn't working that hard.