Amp question

[NeoFreek]

I know very little about amps but this question might possibly save me a lot of time and money. Or cost me alot of time and money.

My dad has this old amp that he had for his cars, way back when. On the bottom it says that its a 2 channel 22W amp. Yes a 22W amp, not a typo. My current deck is a 40W. If I were to hook this amp up to power my two rear 6x9 speakers will it increase the watts going to the speakers to 62W? Or will they stay at 40W or even go down to 22W? Or could it over heat the amp buy putting it beyond the maximum watts?

Also just asking is it alright to hook the amp up to just 2 speakers and not all 4 speakers? My dad seems to think I will have problems with that. But I don't see why I couldn't.

Thanks.

Neo

[walker]

alright mate i think it shoudl be alright to hook it up to just 2 speakers but i dont know about the increase or decrease in the wattage u will probably have to ask a qualified mechanic....

[NeoFreek]

Ok a better revised question that might help me some how.

Will hooking two 300 watt amps up create 600 watts of power to the speakers? Or is it the same as having one single 300 watt amp?

[lloyd_nickens]

only if the amps are bridgeable, if not then you will fry the amps.

[Dodrive_it]

Hi NeoFreek!

I hust read your post and thought I'd give you some info to make sure you don't get false hopes. All contemporary head-units boast high outputs, like 4*50W, but these figures are way 2 optimistic...The REAL CONTINOUS output of those amps is more like 13-15W RMS. RMS wattage represents the key info concerning the power of an amp coz it measures the maximum cont output, not a 200ms max burst output, which you'll never get in ANY working conditions in real life! Head-units use so-called power-packs to amplify the signal; genereally external power amps (excluding supermarket brands) use transistor-based technologies that yield far greater results in terms of pure quality and quantity.

You definetly should install that amp! but make sure your head-unit has a line-out like a stero RCA jack in the back of it! plus you'll need to be carefull when wiring the amp...the net is full of good places with info on DIY!!

As a general rule, serious amp producers under-rate their amps, and only disclose RMS values, not BS MAX output.

About connecting 2 amps to the same loudspeaker: NO CAN DO!! it doesn't work that way, unless your 6x9s are configurable in bi-amp mode...If it is so, I'd definately reccommend you to use 2 identical amps if you wan't some kind of improvement over the 1 amp normal config!

About bridging 2 separate amps into one channel....not really either, unless you have rockfordfosgate amps, which are the only ones in the market designed to do so...I seriously don't think it's even a good idea to try...IMHO

Hope this helps,
Stefano