How many channels do I need on my amp.

[justice 10+ year member]

I am new to this but you guys have been alot of help. I read on CarStereo.com that having your speakers running from your amp helps to improve sound quality. I am getting an amp. I have 2 10"400 watt woffers that I will be hooking up to it. If I get an 800 watt 2 channel amp does that mean I hook each woffer up to each channel leaving me no more channels for my speakers? Do I need to get a 4 cannel amp for the 2 front speakers and the 2 woofer? And if I decide to have 2 rear speakers for a total of four speakers and 2 woofers does that mean I need a 6 channel amp?

If I need more channels can I just use a 2nd amp? if so does that mean my head unit needs more than 1 RCA conector? Or can the amps conect to each other or what?

Also what does bridgeing the channels do?

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[Trixter 10+ year member]

Ok, let's see....

First of all, always go by the RMS rating of everything. If your subs are 400w RMS, then yes, go with an 800w RMS amp. If you get a two channel amp, depending on it's capabilities, you can either hook the 2 subs to their own channel, you can run them off of a single channel, or you can bridge the amp and run both that way. Bridging is simply hooking the two channels of an amp together. When this is do it turns the amp from being 2 channel stereo to 1 channel mono. Lets say you go with a 200w 2 channel amp (100w per channel). If you run a sub off each channel, you will gett 100w to each. When it is bridged you get a single channel that put out 200w.

In you case, assuming you have 4ohm single voice coil subs, I would look for an amp that is 200w per channel and is 2ohm mono stable. This means that you can bridge the amp for a mono, 2ohm load. This is done by bridging the 2 channels together for a total of a 400w mono load. By wiring the subs in parallel, you drop the impedance (ohms) by half (or close to it). Every time you cut the impedance in half, you double the amps power out put. So now you have 800w rms going to your subs (400w each) through you mono channel. Still followin'?

(You can also just buy a mono amp.)

As for adding front/rear speakers, I would go with a seperate 4 channel amp and run each speaker to a channel. You can also get a 2 channel amp and run the fronts at 2ohms on one side and the rears at 2ohms off the other. But every time you drop the impedance, you increase the distortion. As far as subs go it is not that audible of a difference, but when your talking speakers it can be a different story...but not always. (This is why most home systems are at 8ohms.)

If your only running fronts, you could run them off the same amp as the subs. But from my expierance the subs tend to take away power from the speakers. This is why I recommend seperate amps.

As for the RCA's most head units come with at least 2 sets of RCA out puts. If not, some amps come with a RCA passthrough. If you don't have either you can always use a "Y" splitter and split the RCA between the two amps.

Hope this helps out.

Good luck!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Trixter 10+ year member]

I read your other post...what's up with the beer? Did I help out enough? If not ask more Q's. I perfer Hacker Pschorr Wiess.

J/K...LOL