Bridged, series and parallel

[J-Boogie]

What's up people.. Need a little help. I am new to the whole car system set up. I was wondering if someone could explain what the terms Bridged, series and parallel really mean when it comes to amp configurations?? Thanks..

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[maylar 10+ year member]

In general terms -

Series means wiring two items together end-to-end, plus to minus. With speaker impedances (ohms ratings) the ohms total of the combination is the sum of the two. Ex. two 4-ohm speakers in series = 8 ohms.

Parallel means wiring items "across" each other, Plus to plus, minus to minus. With 2 speakers (or 2 voice coils of the same speaker), putting them in parallel creates a combination that is half of each. Ex. two 4 ohm speakers in parallel = 2 ohms.

Bridged means the same as series, but refers to amp outputs instead of speakers. You can take a 2 channel amp and connect the both channels in series and run them into one speaker for more power. That's called bridging the amp.

 

[Unregistered]

But dont if you wire the subs in series you lose the power. Say your amp puts 500 watts bridged, you run the subs in series each will only get 350, correct? in parallel they would both see 500? Is that right?

 

[MxRacerCam 10+ year member]

right, but when you wire in parallel, the impedence of the speakers are decreased, and some amps can't handle that. just make sure your amp is stable at whatever impedence you are driving it at (whether it's bridged or stereo), or bad smokey things can happen (especially to cheap amps)!