Rikster

I have a 4 channel 2 ohm stable Sony amp in an '88 Audi 80. The fronts are 4 inch, the rears 5.25 inch and I've got an Alpine sub. I'm looking for quality and stereo imaging rather than shear volume.

Options:
1. Fronts and rears off amplifier in parallel, with passive xover on fronts. Sub on remaining bridged channels

2. Fronts off amp, Rears off head unit, sub off amp

3. Seperate amp for sub (not favourite - financially demanding

Can't try them out at the mo cos head unit is on order

Any advice (except telling me to get a job to pay for it!!) is very welcome. Keep up the good forum

HDClown

If you can do option 2, do that.

You could use option 1 but you'd loose ability to fade front/rear if that was a concern. Another downside to this is you'd be pushing identical power to fernt and rears so you'd need to attenuate the rears. Cost a few extra bucks (I've seen cheapy attenuation circuits for $10-20 at crutchfield.com).

I like option 2 the best.

Evan (Vogon)

it may work though.. i know my roommate, and a couple others, have to unbridge the amp, to get it to power a sub and the speakers, i forget why...

mike-lur

wire it up properly and put an atttenuation circuit on the rear speakers. you amp should at least have a crossover to drop the lows off the int speakers, if not then spend money here to get a crossover. the reality is just the same as bridging your two rear channels when you wire the interior L and R in parallel. no difference at all. your amp can handle it just fine.

mike-lur

no difference. all you do when you bridge an amp is reduce the ohm load, putting a 2 ohm load on each channel is the same as bridging them together.

doc_dregle

I mean, you don't go to a concert and sit in the middle of the stage, right? We have been trained by old systems that used the hollow trunk to create bass, to listen to the music behind us in cars.

I re-did the stereo in my previous car to a 4 channel amp, powering the 2 fronts and 2 rears (no sub in my case,) but I could only afford to upgrade on set of speakers. I got a nice pair of McIntosh with their own crossovers. After a week of driving around with the fade pushing up the front 1/5th, I loved it (around the break in time of the speakers - I was driving a lot.) Later, in friends' cars with the rears turned up, I noticed I disliked the sound.

Just my untrained opinion,