How to get the most power

[Biker 10+ year member]

Which way gives me the most power to my two 10 inch subwoofers and 1100 watt 4 channel amp.

wire the two 8 ohm subs together for 4 ohms and wire it to channels 1 and 2 briddged Mono

or

Wire one 8 ohm sub to channel 1 and 2 bridged mono and the other 8 ohm sub to channels 3 and 4 bridged mono?

Thanks Biker

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[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Which way gives me the most power to my two 10 inch subwoofers and 1100 watt 4 channel amp.
wire the two 8 ohm subs together for 4 ohms and wire it to channels 1 and 2 briddged Mono

or

Wire one 8 ohm sub to channel 1 and 2 bridged mono and the other 8 ohm sub to channels 3 and 4 bridged mono?

Thanks Biker

what amp?

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

Which way gives me the most power to my two 10 inch subwoofers and 1100 watt 4 channel amp.
wire the two 8 ohm subs together for 4 ohms and wire it to channels 1 and 2 briddged Mono

or

Wire one 8 ohm sub to channel 1 and 2 bridged mono and the other 8 ohm sub to channels 3 and 4 bridged mono?

Thanks Biker

First of all, //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/bigwave.gif.16324171cad2db62cf4f16568b038478.gif Welcome to our little corner of the car audio world. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

If you wire the two subs in parallel to make a 4 Ohm load and then run both subs off of a pair of amp channels in bridged mode you'll get whatever power the amp outputs in mono bridged mode divided by 2 and that is the wattage going to each sub.

If you were to bridge the amp to 2 channel mono bridged and then run one sub off of each bridged channel you'll still get whatever the amp outputs in mono bridged mode divided by 2 (dropping an 8 Ohm load onto an output whose wattage is rated @ a 4 Ohm load).

Looks like either option will yield the same result since you're powering 8 Ohm drivers.

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

let's say your amp does 50 x4 and 100x2 bridged. wire the subs to 4 ohms you get 100 watts going to the pair, so 50 watts a piece. now lets assume the amp does half the power at 8 ohms. so 50 watts x2. you wire the subs and you get the same power either way. wiring them to 8 ohms will cause less heat and strain on your amp, however you will then have your subs setup in stereo

 

[Biker 10+ year member]

So I would assume that less heat in the AMP is a good thing. But what about the two Tens being in Stereo? Is that good or bad?

Thanks

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

So I would assume that less heat in the AMP is a good thing. But what about the two Tens being in Stereo? Is that good or bad?
Thanks

i tend to like them run as mono. if you fade forward you'll loose the sub bass, and then when you balance it just wouldn't sound good. honestly i suggest you just sell the 4-channel and get a mono amp. if you bridge both subs and wire them to 4 ohms, you also have the other 2 channels available to run a set of components

 

[Biker 10+ year member]

The reason I am in this situation is because I took the 4 stock speakers off channel 1 and 2 and purchased another Rockford fosgate 4 channel amp to run 2 Infinity kappa perfects components and 2 Infinity 2 ways so now I have this original amp only for the subs.

The subs are MTX In a Thunderform box under the rear seat. If I want more power to them and my AMP has plenty of power should I replace the 8 OHM Subs with 4 Ohm ones? Or does anyone have any other ideas. My Amp is 2 OHM stable so I suppose I could put 2 4 ohm subs together for 2 Ohm load on channels 1 and 2 bridged Mono.

Am I thinking in the right direction or just leave the subs alone, They pounded pretty good before.

Thanks Biker

 

[BigManFred3251 10+ year member]

I would get rid of the 8 ohm and get 4 ohm subs. then hook one sub to bridge channels 1 & 2 then hook the other sub to bridged channels 3 & 4. your best bet is to go with a mono amp. they are better and you would get more power for the 8 ohm subs.other wise you wont get much from the 8 ohm subs because of the wiring options you have to go with.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Several options...

1) Most amps make more power @ 2 ohms than 4, but not double the power. If you wire each sub to a bridged pair of channels you will get more power to them than if you were to run both off one bridged pair and the amp will run cooler at the 8 ohm bridged load (same as if it were running in 4 ohm stereo mode).

2) Get a mono amp. The drawback to this IMO is that unless you get a pretty expensive amp, you will need to get the load lower than 4 ohms to get much power out of it. Basically you will need to buy a really big mono amp to get good 4 ohm power.

3) Get a decent sized 2 channel amp and run it bridged to the subs wired in parallel. You can get more power this way than with a comparably priced mono amp. The drawback to this is that the amp will likely be an A/B class amp and will draw more current from your electrical system. This may necessitate other upgrade on the electrical power side of things.

4) Get new subs that are 4 ohm and wire each one a bridged pair off the amp you have.

5) A combination of two of the above.

If I were you, I would start with the first one. It doesn't cost you anything but a few minutes of your time. If that doesn't do it for you look to one or more of the other suggestions. Personally I would lean toward the larger two channel amp to run bridged if cost was an issue.

 

[Biker 10+ year member]

I checked my subwoffers and since there wired together to ctrate a 4 Ohm Load and are rated at 450 Watts RMS I purchased a new Rockford Fosgate P4002 2 channel amp rated at 1 X 400 Watts RMS at 4 ohms Bridged mono.

Think that was a good option? They were drawing 250 Watts with the original amp and sounded pretty good.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

If you were happy before then you should be happy again. The difference in output between 400 and 500 watts is very small.

 

[Biker 10+ year member]

Ill be going from 250 to 400 ? I guess we will see , I should have it all done in about a week

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Sorry thought that you meant 250 each. Yeah you'll be happy.