Im confused........ Does bridging your amp lower ohm load?

[six6nine9wpk]

I recently purchased ID CTX65CS 4ohm speakers and a ID CTX105 10' 4ohm subwoofer. I own a JL Audio g6600 6-channel amp that I plan on bridging to 200 x 3 @ 4ohms. My friend tells me that I need 2ohm speakers because when you bridge an amp it drops the ohm load. He is not a professional but has installed a lot of systems. What he is telling me goes against everything I have been reading. I read that your speakers dictate the load amount. Also my amp manual states that when the amp is bridged it will deliver optimum power @ a 4ohm load. I don't want to mess up my amp or speakers help me understand.

Thanks in advance

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[garychoffmann 10+ year member]

You want to run 4 ohm speakers. I don't believe that amp will do 2 ohm's mono.

 

[bbeljefe]

Your amp is stable at 2Ω per channel but when you bridge two amplifier channels into one, each channel sees only half the impedance load of the bridged pair. Thus, if you bridge your amp into three channels and you use three 4Ω drivers, each of the 6 individual channels will be seeing a 2Ω load.

What your friend is telling you to do would cause each amplifier channel to see only 1Ω, which would cause the JL amp to shut down.

 

[garychoffmann 10+ year member]

Good explanation

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

A pair of 4 ohm speakers and a 4 ohm subwoofer is not going to make the amplifier see anything other than 4 ohms nominal when each speaker and the subwoofer is wired to its own bridged pair of channels. Bridging will increase the potential output of the amplifier at the slight expense of higher THD, which is not enough to worry about.