I recently found a Sony 1-544-688-11 10-Inch driver from a Sony SS-U211. It is rated at 8 ohms and 200 W. I am not experienced at all with audio hardware so I need help finding an Amp. I am looking to put this in my truck as a sub.
Would this be okay?
Well that looks like a pretty cheap amp.
I´m personaly not realy that familier with Boss Audio stuff.
But does the amp has its own hi / low / mid phase filter on it aswell?
Some head units have an intergrated frequancy regulator, or even a special sub woofer output.
But if the headunit doesnt have it, then its kinda a must to have a frequency regulator on the amp.
Because you dont want to send to high frequencies trough a sub.
For the rest a 2 chanel amp should basicly be fine.
You could run it in bridge mode to provide more power for the sub.
The most easiest way if you just want a drive a sub of a amp on its own.
It might make more sense to look at a mono block amp.
But @CynicRF might be able to give some better information on this.
I am hoping to spend $50 total for a head unit and an amp. I am open to suggestions.
Many 2 channel amps can actually be bridged to form 1 channel with slightly less than the power of both channels combined. ... this can be cheaper.... just fyi
If you want to spend 50 dollars on a head unit and an amp,then all that's going to happen is that you just wasted 50 dollars and a bunch of your time. I have experience with Boss audio and I can say with certanty that that amp won't work properly as you intended it to. It will not be outputting anything near it's so called rated output, you would be lucky to get 50 real watts out of that. And if my experience serves any value, it'll work at that sub par level for about a year before it stops working all together.
Can you bridge a 4 channel amp? Maybe bridge at least 2 or all of the channels? I have contacted a company and they are willing to provide me with a Kinter MA-200 for review. Will this work? It says it can output 41W per channel.
eh... I dunno about 4 channels. When it's bridgeable it'll say in the manual.
Well i wont be able to see the manual until i get it. Even then, oh well, if the amp dies, it was free anyway.
sure you can.... just google it. You can almost always find the pdf somewhere.
I know, in my dads car we have a 2 channel amp from JBL in bridge mode to drive a single sub.
I would avoid it based on the heat sink design alone.
its free
READ YOUR PAPER WORK and Im sorry I am an engineer.. I like to hear myself talk
As it happens @MisteryAngel is correct.. Thank You @eidolonFIRE for the information on 2 channel bridging.
As it happens a bridgeable amp will clearly state that it can be done and how to do it.
For the sake of information in the post I will go into what bridging is
Bridging refers to combining two or four channels of an amplifier into one or two channels with twice the voltage. A two channel amp can be bridged to one channel, and a four channel amp into two channels if the manufacturer states that it can be bridged. Bridging the channels increases the overall real power output. An amplifier is usually bridged to combine two channels to power one subwoofer (This is the OP's case), or to combine four channels into powering two subwoofers. (My car's case) To clarify, you cannot bridge a monoblock amplifier. If you are purchasing a monoblock amplifier forget the idea as they only have one channel. In bridging you need opposing channels in order to increase the power output. In electrical engineering terms(my terms), you should be using a low source impedance to drive a large load impedance, which results in maximum voltage transfer. There are a couple pieces of mathematics here that could tell you how much voltage transfer you get but for the sake of today's discussion I do not think I am going to discuss the Thevenin's AC Max Power Theory.
Now if its bridgeable their will be some sort of directions on how to do so but you should theoretically be able to bridge the two channels and power the single channel subwoofer
Now im going to pick on boss audio right here... Basically all of their stuff in my opinion is pretty sub par and i feel they tweaked their numbers to make it sound cool. I have had a lot of friends get not even a year of use out of their product but hey its worth a try and a fun experiment so have fun with it. The head unit. Make sure you get a solid one so even if the free amp goes away you still have a good head unit that you can use with the next amp :)
Please Follow these tips laid out here:
1) before bridging an amplifier you dont know supports bridging... check for inverted channels. if it has an inverted identical channel... then it can be bridged
2) Only bridge an amplifer that can both handle and be stable at the increased power load.
3) ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS study the diagramns and product paper work before attempting any such work
4) The General rule of thumb is that all well designed multi-channel amplifiers have a minimum bridged stability rating that is higher than the minimum stated impedance from one of its channels. EX: a 2 channel amplifier that is 3 ohm stable per channel would have a minimum impedance of 6 ohms when bridged. In reality, most amps are only stable at a 4 ohm load in mono/bridged configuration but thats my experience
Generally how its basically done:
you locate the amp terminals. For your 2-channel amplifier, you will see four terminals. A positive and a negative terminal for each channel. If you are bridging this to one subwoofer, you will connect one piece of speaker wire from the positive terminal of channel 1 to the speaker’s positive terminal. Next connect a speaker wire to the negative terminal of channel 2 to the speaker’s negative terminal. and voila boom bridged
Will keep that in mind when attempting. Now if Boss is not good, can you steer me into the direction of something that would work for me (8ohm 200W sub)?
I posted it in the lounge to see if some frequenters have some suggestions that would probably better than mine :)
Here are some companies/ brands to look for when purchasing "THE REAL DEAL" which means these are expensive brands which are the only ones i seem to know of. Thats why i need somebody else to step in here
JL Audio "Slash series"
Audison
Kenwood "Excelon Series"
Polk Audio
Rockford Fosgate (cheapest in my book)
Those are the best companies IMHO. Also heres a tip when searching for amplifiers dont let the engineering terms confuse you. Max Power is Peak power which means it can provide up to this at a single impulse but not continuously. The RMS power is the important number. It is the realistic continuous power the amplifier can provide. So the higher the RMS the more power you get continously... the higher the peak.. basically the more punch you can get at an instance. SOMETIMES both are important values depending on your setup.
One more tip. Its best to slightly over power your speakers vs underpowering. The truth of the matter is underpowering actually shorterns their life more than overpowering excessively so try to match your speaker power :D Matched circuits are happy circuits
I know yall are gonna hate me. Many people have had success with bridging the R1002. If the review sample I am getting isn't adequate, then I will buy the R1002. Will keep you updated. I am in college and funds are short is all...
I just received the Kinter MA-200. It seems to work fairly well. Connected to my sub it isn't mindblowing, but it packs a little punch. I will do some testing with bridging. It did not even come with a manual...
Bridge mode is probably on the amp it self.
with most amps under the speaker connections, there is the scheme for bridge mode.
You're going to need a fair bit more than 200w rated amp to run an 8ohm sub. If it's dual voice coil you can parallel them to 4ohm but I doubt this is the case.
A lot of cheap amps are rated at 2ohm.
My vote goes to the Kenwood, inexpensive and good quality.