Is my amplifier able to drive my new speakers safely? Ohm mismatch and wiring amps to speakers.?

Question

I just purchased a speaker system which the manuf. recommends the amp driving the system be rated at b/ween 100W - 200W RMS per ch (with 2 ch in total) with the speaker impedance at 2 Ohms.

I have an existing 4 ch amp which outputs at 50W per ch in 4 Ohms and 65W per ch in 2 Ohms. I can bridge the amp to make it a two channel using the special settings indicated and the output would become 130W per ch at 4 Ohms.

Eventhough there is an impendence mismatch between the speakers and amplifier in the bridged mode, would my amp still be able to drive the speakers? If so will either speakers or the amp be under stress, and how bad will it be?

Or, instead of using the bridge mode can I simply wire two channels of my amp and connect them to one of my speakers? Since the output of one channel is 65W @ 2 Ohms, then combined the output of two channels will be 130W @ 2 Ohms. Is this right and is this possible without damaging either speaker or amp? ie 2 power sources driving 1 speaker. Thx

Answer 1

when you bridge a amplifier typically a 4 ohm load is as low as you can go, if you try to bridge and run a 2 ohm load, your amp will overheat and likely go in to protect mode (shut down) within a couple minutes. i would recomend simply using 2 of the channels @ 65 watts will work fine for those speakers, you just wont get the full potential out of them.

Definately do not run two "power sources to one speaker" that will cause shorts and you could damage your amp. at the very least it will shut down.



Dont worry about 65 not being enough compared to the 100, the fact is you have to double power to gain a misaly 3 db. in overall volume increase. so from 65 to 100 is only 2 decibals, which will be hardly noticable.



UPDATE:

Looking at the site you provided you may want to consider a new amp, try what you have first, but those speakers look ausome, and may require a bit more to power them "well"

Answer 2

From the sounds of it you have regular speakers and not a subwoofer? Assuming you have regular door/rear speakers the rms isn't as big of a deal as it is with subwoofers. If you have subwoofers under powering them is worse in some cases than overpowering the speaker because it creates more distortion which is like rust is to a car...The way it sounds though is the speaker system is regular speakers and not subwoofers so the rms is not as big of a deal. To me though I've never heard of 100-200 watt rms regular speakers for a car. If what you have is a subwoofer than you could one of the channels and present a 4 ohm load at the amp. I'm a little unsure exactly what you have going on as when the recommended power of the speakers are between 100 and 200 watts rms that is quite impressive for speakers that aren't just for bass...

Answer 3

The speakers must be always more powerful then amp. Fo 50W amp u should connect about 150W speakers. U can also connect speakers with 50W but in serial connection that will make it as one speaker of 100W if u can understand that. U can connect speakers with more ohms. If your amp require 8omhs u can still connect like 12ohms speaker but u will lose a little power but it is safe.