Why do my mids sound better with less power?

[jdub486 10+ year member]

I am running a two way active system with morel raw drivers similar to the elates. Anyways, I hit a speedbump and my sub box crushed the Phoenix Gold xenon 100.4 amp I had bridged running the mids (200 rms *2). That amp is now in protect mode so I hooked up a Xenon 100.1 (100rms*2) and the mids sound better than ever now. More bass, snappier upper midbass, and much crisper sound. Does this seem weird to anyone else? Does the fact the I switched from a four channel bridged to the 2 channel make a difference? Is bridged mode bad for mids? Only thing I can think of is the gains were set higher on the less powerful amp.

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[oldschool4me 10+ year member]

yes a two ch will prpbably sound better than a 4ch bridged. seems that when you bridge an amp it decreases the bandwidth and damp fact, also increases thd.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Decreases the damping, but it should still be more than high enough that the difference isn't audible. THD increase isn't that substantial. Bandwidth shouldn't change at all.

Very likely that you were running too much power before and the speakers were exhibiting severe power compression. Also possible that something was wrong with the other amp or how you had things hooked up to it.

The other lesson here is BOLT YOUR **** DOWN!!!

 

[jdub486 10+ year member]

Speakers are rated for 180 rms, I was sending 220 rms with gains set low. What is power compression?

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

Speakers are rated for 180 rms, I was sending 220 rms with gains set low. What is power compression?

Power Compression

Speaker voice coils are made of copper or aluminum right?. So as these voice coils increase in temperature during normal operation, their resistance increases so you get less power. Greater voice coil resistance means less power transfer from the amplifier. As a result, the speaker will not play as loud when it's "warmed up" as it did when it was "cold". Some speakers may exhibit 3 to 6 dB of power compression. A mere 3 dB of power compression is equivalent to cutting the available wattage of your power amps in half.

 

[black50ragtop 10+ year member]

It might have something to do with signal to noise ratio. I came across the topic somewhere, I think its when a (more powerful) amp is set up with the gains are set low, whatever amount of noise is present is more significant than when (less powerful) amp gains are set high. Sort buys into the matching amp to speaker power deal.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

It might have something to do with signal to noise ratio. I came across the topic somewhere, I think its when a (more powerful) amp is set up with the gains are set low, whatever amount of noise is present is more significant than when (less powerful) amp gains are set high. Sort buys into the matching amp to speaker power deal.

Well, where ever you read that.....was wrong.

For best signal to noise ratio you want the "gain" in your system as early as possible.....ideally you want the amp gain turned "down" as far as possible for best signal to noise ratio.