Bridging vs. stereo operation...which is better?

[Weister42]

I'm going to run a dual 4 ohm voice coil subwoofer with my Proton D1200 amp, and I happens to have the earlier version with the bridging switch. I can either run the amp in stereo with each channel connected to each coil, OR I can wire the sub's coil in series to give me 8 ohms and bridge the amp. Which way is better? I'm currently running the amp in bridged mode to a single 8 ohm sub, but I just blew it the other day

[pelly3s]

i wouldn't run it in stereo with one side on each coil, if the amp isn't perfectly matched it will lead to problems. now running it in bridge mono at 8 ohms probably won't give you too much power for a sub, i don't know if it is 2 ohm stable though.

[Weister42]

Well either way the amp will "see" the same impedance...in stereo the amp will see 4 ohm per channel, and in bridged it will see an 8 ohm load(with the coils wired in series), since the amp is in bridged mode it will see the same load as if it was driving a 4 ohm per channel load in stereo. The amp will work the same either way, I'm just asking if there's any sonic differences or colorations involved?

I ran a different dual 4 ohm sub before in stereo mode for a few days, and it seems to work just fine even with The Matrix cranked to reference levels...

[mtrycraft]

[QUOTE=Weister42] The amp will work the same either way, I'm just asking if there's any sonic differences or colorations involved?

QUOTE]


Nothing to worry about it.

[FLZapped]

I'm going to run a dual 4 ohm voice coil subwoofer with my Proton D1200 amp, and I happens to have the earlier version with the bridging switch. I can either run the amp in stereo with each channel connected to each coil, OR I can wire the sub's coil in series to give me 8 ohms and bridge the amp. Which way is better? I'm currently running the amp in bridged mode to a single 8 ohm sub, but I just blew it the other day

You could do it either way. Just make sure you connect the two voice coils in series to give you 8 ohms, because a bridged amplifer sees half the actual impedance.

You'll find that when you bridge, you should THEORETICALLY gain a 4x increase in power output. Usually it's closer to 3x because of internal limitations of the amp.

Also, when you bridge, your noise floor will be higher and your distortion will increase.

-Bruce