Why are there 2+ and 2- speaker terminals on a mono amp?

[tr10av 10+ year member]

What is the purpose of this? Does it matter which ones I use to hook up my sub?

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[dB-r 10+ year member]

For convenience. To make it easier to wire multiple speakers to it, you don't have to stuff all the wires in 2 little holes, you got 4 to work with. ++ and -- are tied together, not a seperate channel, just a seperate hole for more wire.

Also newer Class D amps needed bigger speaker wire or more smaller speaker wire to be able to handle the massive amounts of current being supplied to the subwoofers voice coils, so they made the speaker terminals bigger and more of them so you can use more wire and bigger wire to your subs.

 

[tr10av 10+ year member]

Gotcha that makes sense.

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

Just wiring flexibility //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[FatPat*da*Ratt 10+ year member]

they make it easier for wiring two amps together...when you strap them //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[PaulD 10+ year member]

my IA 20.1 is like that. I used a pair of wires for each voice coil, made it a LOT easier.

 

[lostdaytomorrow 10+ year member]

Can anyone confirm that the RD Audio 3250.1 is internally bridged like most mono amps? When I read the online manual, it makes it very confusing when wiring the subs, and usually I would just put one - on one side and a + on the other side so they weren't next to each other.

 

[smgreen20 10+ year member]

If it's a mono amp and has 2 +/- then it internally bridges. 8 gauge speaker wire is all you should ever need. Even at 6000 watts.

 

[x1le 10+ year member]

I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as bridging a mono amp //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

and yeah, it's just for convenience.

 

[smgreen20 10+ year member]

You ??? Unknowingly bridge it yourself ??? on an internally bridged amp. On the outside the terminals are separated, but on the inside those terminals "meet", + to +, - to -, therefor bridging internally.

But in the sense you mean, there's only 1 ch so how can you combine it w/another ch that's non existent. So it should be labeled "internally paralleling".

 

[ejschultz 10+ year member]

they make it easier for wiring two amps together...when you strap them //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Here's a dumb question for you:

What is strapping amps?

 

[smgreen20 10+ year member]

Some amps you're able to add (strap) together their power as if it is now 1 big amp instead of 2.

The amp has to be made to do it. It has a master/slave switch on them as a hard drive in your computer would have, to add the HDDs together.

 

[ejschultz 10+ year member]

Some amps you're able to add (strap) together their power as if it is now 1 big amp instead of 2.
The amp has to be made to do it. It has a master/slave switch on them as a hard drive in your computer would have, to add the HDDs together.

Okay, I understand the master/slave switches and how that works, but how do the amps hook together?