Bridge mono

[h34ton]

I must admit, I haven't the foggiest idea about running my amps in bridge mono!
If I did, would it give me more volume front of house?
Could I switch a behringer ep2500 to bridge and link two EV force I cabs together safely?
Could I switch a peavey PV2600 to bridge and link two Yamaha AX15 cabs together? It's an ohms thing really!! I dont understand them either!!
Cheers, Steve.

[soundmanjim]

depends on the impeadance of the cabs. if they are 8 ohms, then linking them together and running them off the bridge outlet would be roughly 1200w into 4 ohms. i HATE running speakers into 4 ohms - simon and i made a pact that all our speakers would run off 8 ohms - so all our subs and mid tops run struiaght from an amp with no linking - more speakers, more amps. it works too, no damage to the speaker at this impeadance.

why run the subs mono (bridged) if you can simply select 'bridge' on the dip switches on the back of the ep2500 amp?

[Simon Ryder]

Bridging is inherantly mono. You are using one half of the amp to push and the other half to pull.

What happens when you engage the bridge mono switch on an amp is this:

The input signal is sent to both the A and the B channel. The B channel input is polarity inverted. This is what gives you channel A doing the positive half of the cycle and channel B doing the negative half. To output your two halve of signal you use the positive terminals of both cannel A and B. You do not connect ANYTHING to the negative terminals of either channel. Channel A becomes your positive and channel B your negative.

Now the important bit.

Your amplifier can only deliver so much current. Beyond this point your amplifier will destroy itself and very likely the speaker it is attached to. If you are in doubt, DON'T DO IT!

I'm sure you will be able to piece together from this how to bridge an amp that does ot have a switch on it. Go ahead, but only if you are sure what you are doing. I strongly suggest on reading up on Ohm's law first.

8 ohm speaker + 8 ohm speaker = 4 ohm load many amps can do this but not the cheap ones! CHECK!
4ohm + 4 ohm = 2 ohms Virtually no amplifiers can bridge into this though they may be able to do this on individual channels.

For those of you who truly appreciate these things, Crest make an absolute monster of an amp that is pure toroidal transformers and will deliver 10,000watts rms into a 1ohm bridged load (virtually arc welding territory) this thing weighs about 70kilos and will make your trousers flap like nothing else. They call it the 100001. Lets face it though, you are never gong to be able to power it off a 20amp ring main.

[soundmanjim]

'shock'. i can bareley lift the four (crest) we have let alone that monster!!!