Thread: mono amp vs two channel

Okay I have a great question for some audio gurus. I need to power my two alpine type r 10" subs. They are both rated at 500 watts rms and have DVC so I can wire these two subs in any impedance configuration from 1 to 8 ohms pretty much. From my understanding It seems the higher the resistance the less distortion there seems to be. Anyways I am looking at two amps from the same company and they are the same price. One is a mono amp which is rated at 1000 watts @ 2 ohms. The other amp is a 2 channel amp which is rated at 1200 watts @ 4 ohms, when the two channes are bridged together. Now, everyone says that a mono is better for subs, since they are usually class D and high frequency distortion is irrelevant for subwoofers, but you want the efficiency to keep a small heat sink, and power. Well it turns out both of these amp are A/B circuitry amps. Which do you guys think is better in this case and why?

imma say the mono amp. I'm getting rusty lol but erm see if this helps u understand alittle bit Series Parallel Speaker Impedance ... also u should give the OHM of the speakers.

I know how to wire speakers...I said in the post the subs can be wired from 1 to 8 ohms they have DVC, depending if you jump them in parallel or in series they can be arranged to have different resistance. Why is the mono better?

mono and then wire it into series. You'll get more watts that way. A 2-channel amp will cut the watts in half on 2 subs...

WEll wont both amps cut the power in half on two subs. I would run the subs in parallel in 4 ohms each to the mono since it runs 1000 watts at 2 ohms. The 2 channel on the other hand has 1200 watts at 4 ohms, so wouldn't that be 600 watts a sub, instead of 500 watts a sub from the mono at a lower resistance?

Does any one else have any input, i'm not sure if offroad understands the question or not?

Just to clarify the question both amps are A/B circuitry.

Well this all depend on the subs. they Dual 4 Dual 8 or Dual 2? If they are both class A/B it makes no diff in the world so just get the one that matches the impediance best for your subs. Im gonna assume the only diff is the mono amp is geared more towards Subs and would probably have extra features like Boost and sub sonic filters ect..

dual 2, like i said that doesn't matter i can wire it any way i want and make it work from .5 ohms to 8 ohms. That does make sense though about gearing them more to subs. They only show a lpf and 18 db bass boost on the website, but they both have that.

OKAY lets not talk about ohms aka impedance aka resistance any more, because i think everyone is stuck up on this, when it doesn't matter. The question is would there be any difference in these two amplifiers? Will the 4 ohms with more power sound better, or is there something about a mono amp I do not know about?

Just sit with a mono amp, you will be a lot happier in the long run and gain the wattage instead of splitting in half. Along with having an extra set of wires you gotta hide. The real question is the type of subs you are going to be running with the amp, if you have cheap subs, no amp will make them sound good.

In regards to the impedance, running 2 or 4ohm will only depend on the RMS output of the subs themselves. If your subs have a low RMS, say 600 or below, you are best to run in 4ohm to not blow them up.

So what amps are you looking at? You never said......That would help people steer you in a better direction, one way or the other.

Originally Posted by GeddyLee

Just sit with a mono amp, you will be a lot happier in the long run and gain the wattage instead of splitting in half. Along with having an extra set of wires you gotta hide. The real question is the type of subs you are going to be running with the amp, if you have cheap subs, no amp will make them sound good.

In regards to the impedance, running 2 or 4ohm will only depend on the RMS output of the subs themselves. If your subs have a low RMS, say 600 or below, you are best to run in 4ohm to not blow them up.

So what amps are you looking at? You never said......That would help people steer you in a better direction, one way or the other.

So let me get this straight. Each sub is going to get 1000 watts? Why would the amp not split the 1000 watts between the two subs? Like I said before these are alpine type R subs that are rated at 500 watts rms a pop. If I want to run 4 ohms not to blow the speakers, shouldn't I use the two channel amp, since it outputs 1200 watts at 4 ohms? Are you saying 600 watts is a low number for both subs combined or one? i thought the 500 watts rms for each sub was power hungry IMO. BTW the 1200 watts at 4 ohms is obtainable by bridging the two channels together. I was figuring to run each sub as 2 ohms and then run them in series to create 4 ohms to the amplifier. Theoretically I would get 600 watts at 4 ohms to each speaker from the two channel amp. If I was going to run them to the mono amp, i would run each speaker as a 4 ohm sub and run them in parallel to bring down the Req to 2 ohms. Theoretically I would be getting 500 watts at 2 ohms per sub. On paper it seems the two channel is better. These two amps are made by ultra linear. They are cheap as hell and are not CEA compliant, but I know they are good on power rating as I have seen them in other set ups similar to mine, and sounded better than my alpine amp i had. The stats on the two amplifiers are near identical. Both a/b circuitry, both have same S/N ratio, and both have same frequency range and LPF. BTW what extra wires are you referring to?

If they are Dual 2s i would go with the mono. series to parallel would bring you at 2ohm and the mono amp would be more efficient 2ohms then the 2 channel. Most 2 channels are made to run 4ohm bridge and the farther you drop them in ohm the more heat,distortion ect... you get. And no matter what the subs are wired to as long as they are wired to where both have the same final impediance per sub they will always "split" the power

Originally Posted by JCG's-GTP

If they are Dual 2s i would go with the mono. series to parallel would bring you at 2ohm and the mono amp would be more efficient 2ohms then the 2 channel. Most 2 channels are made to run 4ohm bridge and the farther you drop them in ohm the more heat,distortion ect... you get. And no matter what the subs are wired to as long as they are wired to where both have the same final impediance per sub they will always "split" the power

Thank you...seriously everyone kept saying well use the mono because it wont split the power . Thanks for the advice, but for some reason I always remember hearing the more resistance you had the less distortion you get. AS for heat, I know resistors get hot, but I didn't know it would make a difference between 2 and 4 ohms.

First of all what model of amps are they?

If they are any type of decent amps. If you havent got the amp yet then get a nice amp that will do 1ohm. Another way to power poth subs. Its a 50/50 the amp will work is run it at a 1.6ohm load ( should if a quality built amp)

Wire the first sub in parallel then series wire the other sub.

Originally Posted by FuglyGTP

In order to achieve a 4 ohm setup you would have to use only one voice coil per sub. Typically, each voicecoil is made to handle half of the rated power (so 250wrms per coil). You run a very high risk IMO of frying a coil. Go with a 2 ohm mono setup (4 ohm per sub wired in parallel).

I have a 300wrms class A amplifier, 2.5 farad cap, and an alternator rewire (made a HUGE difference). My idle voltage sits at 14.5v but the lights dim a tad when I bump it. If you are concerned about the amount of juice you are going to be drawing, then go with a class D amplifier. Class A is about 60-70% efficient where as class D is around 90%.

FUGLY you are awesome! Great advice. I dont have the model number of the amps but if you type on mono 1000 watt ultra linear amp or 1200 watt 2 channel in google you guys will see the amps.

lol i remember seeing something about 2ohm mono couple posts ago

And yes the more resistance the more audible THD% you get most the time. Kinda varies on the amps power supply but thats a whole nother convo. Take JL Amps for an example, the 500/1 is 500 watts rms at 8-1.5ohms 12-15+volts. Anyways just my .02