» General Discussion

• david scheyen

  

  • 2 posts
   

  February 12, 2012 5:41:52 AM PST

  Hey guys,

  i was wondering what does it mean when you connect speaker wire to the spot on the amp that says bridged? what does that do? I ask because in my car I have an amp with 4 speakers and only the 2 front speakers are connected to the amp and I have a speaker cable coming from some where that connects to the briged port on my amp. Also my stereo sounds like crap I replace the deck and 2 front speakers, if my amp goes will it sound crappy? I unplugged the power from the amp now only the back 2 speakers are working but souinds a bit better just not real loud. If I want to have 4 speakers and a sub hooked up do I need a 5 channel amp or can I get away with a 4 channel?

  
  This post was edited by david scheyen at February 12, 2012 5:46:13 AM PST
• Barry Schanz

  

  • 182 posts
   

  February 12, 2012 7:40:30 AM PST

  I replied to your thread asking about the basics of car audio. I can see you need a lot of help, which is ok because everyone starts at this level of knowledge.
  
  Bridging an amplifier means you're taking two channels and combining them to act as one more powerful channel. I would not recommend you do that since the extra power adds more heat to your speakers.
  
  Where is the gain knob, sometimes called "input sensitivity", set on the amplifier? This isn't a volume knob. A lot of people think this knob should be turned all the way up. Turn it all the way down to start.
  
  Sometimes you can use a 4 channel amp to power 4 speakers and a subwoofer. It's going to depend on the design of the amp. The best way is to have 4 channels on the 4 speakers and a separate mono amp for the subwoofer.