Subwoofers and Amps...READ!

[Koojo]

Hmmmmm, what does bridged mean, and what effect doe it have on ohms?

[SkylinesKillAll]

i cant really explain bridged i wish i could draw a pic and show u its kinda tricky. its kinda like takin the poitive and negative from different subs and connectin em. im not really sure on this. all i know is the more u bridge it the lower the ohms go. so u have to bridge it to the the peak power out of the amp. u can also wire them in parallel which i also cant really explain. maybe someone knows better than i do.

also instead of writin back and forth on this thng where its takin days to talk jus im on AIM - BmXr23. itll be much faster. im sure we couldve been through this all already.

[Nismoboy1]

Bridging is kinda tricky like Skyline said. kinda hard to explain with just text...lets see...from what I know when you bridge speakers together the basic outcome of this is to run all your subs in mono to which then your amp is also run in mono. Basically running all the positive terminals together and like-wise with the negatives. Some companies even make mono (sub only) amps. But for instance with a 2-channel amp, to run this bridged it would have to have the ability run bridged. Not all amps have the ability to be bridged. If it is able to be bridged, then the speaker outputs would show a diagram right on the amp on which speaker outputs to use (usually right channel positive and left channel negative) therefore the wattage output of the amp is almost doubled. For instance a 100w x 2-ch @ 4ohms amp, bridged would probably be around 175w x 1-ch @ 2 ohms. Technically. But it goes deeper. Now this is where speakers come in say for instance you have 2 4ohm subs, bridged mono it drop to 2 ohms. and say you had 3 4 ohms subs it would drop to 1.3 ohms. Basically how many ohms you start with divided by the amount of speakers. Ok now to piece it all together...whew...let me think for a sec here...ok...say you had a 100W x 2-ch @ 4 ohm amp(bridgeable) and you had 3 4ohm subs. the amp bridged would be around 175W x 1 @ 2 ohms. but since you have 3 4 ohm subs, your system would be running in 1.3 ohms which is lower than 2 ohms which means more power is needed. That same amp would probably almost double the power output @ 1.3 ohms. I'd say around 275w-300w x 1-ch @ 1.3 ohms. But you have to have an amp that is at least 1 ohm stable to support this. So basically when you bridging your running your system in mono all that other crap that I stated is just to make sure its safe to do it and if it is possible to do it. thats all. and good luck.

Feel free to correct me if any of its wrong. thanx.
More info at www.sounddomain.com & www.carreview.com

[Koojo]

Yesterday I went to a few car audio stores, and they all had stuff from different companies. I want to know your opinion on what ones are better. I saw:

JL Audio subs and amps. (the sales guy said that they were good at playing things like rap, but are better for regular less-beat music)
Rockford subs and amps. (he said these were used to give more base for things like rap and more upbeat music.)
Alpine subs and amps. (the amps were exensive!)
MTX subs and amps. (pretty cheap price)
Kenwood amp. (I think it was 600w peek for $200 at sears.)
Sony Xplod amp (760w peek at $200)

[SkylinesKillAll]

ok first of all i dont think any subs were meant for any kind of music. they are jus made for bass. jl r really good. and if u look around u can find em dirt cheap.also if you look on www.thezeb.com they have everytihng cheap. the 3 mtxs u want only go for 265

[Koojo]

I am still a little confused on the power needed from the amp. Lets say I get one 12" sub that throws out about 500w RMS. How much power (RMS) would the amp have to have? Can the amp be lower, like 350w for example, or does it have to be more than the subs? I like the Audiobahn ALUM12 Sound Q Series that cost $124.88 at www.thezeb.com, and have "Power Handling: 1000 Watts R.M.S. " What about the amp then? Would I have to spend a lot of money to buy an amp thats over 1000 Watts RMS? Thanks

[Koojo]

Also another question about power of subs. Audiobahn ALUM12" subs output 1000w RMS. So it would take about 4 other subs that have 250w RMS, to sounds like the Audiobahn ALUM12? What if someone got like two 15" subs that together make 900rms, would the bass sound worse on those two rather than on the Audiobahn ALUM12?

[SkylinesKillAll]

if u get an amp with less power than the subs can take rms the subs wont sound as good as if u got an amp that has the right power. i got a 1200 watt amp for $110 and i love it. ive never had a prom with it and it powers 4 subs nicely.

now about the sound quality i belive the one sub with more power going to it will have better sound quality but not more bass assuming both are getting the correct power. it all depends on how much power they are getting.

[Koojo]

So you think it would be better to put in like 2 10's that make 500w rms for example, rather than one 10 that can make 500w rms? They would both be using the same amp with the same power.

[SkylinesKillAll]

the 1 10 will sound cleaner but the 2 10s will be louder.

[dblthebass]

i would go with the audiobahn 1600w amp (A8002T), it is and intake series which means it has and internal cooling fan, you can get it off ebay brand new in the box for about $158 after shipping