I have a 96 firebird with the 10 speaker sound system in it. I have a few questions regarding adding an amp and subs. I know people are gonna say bad things about my amp but it's all I can afford, just letting people know before they say anything. I have a 1600 watt legacy 2 channel amp. The subs are Diamond Audio CM3 10d2. I have been asking the tech guy from diamond questions but I'm still unclear on how to set it up. He suggested I bridge the voice coil's together for an 8ohm setup and bridge the amp to 8 ohms. How do I bridge the amp to be 8ohm? My other option would be just bridging 4 ohm and running them that way. I'm not sure how I shoud do this setup for the best sound. He suggested a 1.5cubic foot box with no center baffle, going the 8 ohm direction, thinking if the amp is actually putting out 1600 watts that it might be too much for the subs. Does anyone have any suggestions for the best sound quality with my setup? I am using the stock stereo and using a PAC OEM-2 receiver for the outputs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Aron
First off the amp doesnt do 1600 watts so dont worry. I am gonna go on a limb and guess that the amp is large, silver and has plexi glass covers. I had an amp ike that a few years ago when I was just getting into car audio so I know what they are like and what they are capable of. To wire the subs in 8 ohm, assuming that they are single voice coil, you are gonna take the positive of sub one and connect it to the negative on sub two. You will then proceed to take the negative off sub one and connect it to the right negative on the amp, then take the positive off sub two and connect to the positive on the left channel on the amp. This will bridge it to 8 ohms. This is the most sensible way to connect the subs to the amp being it is only 4 ohm stable when its bridged. Also I WOULD suggest chambering the box so the subs dont share air space. I cant believe the diamond guy told you to not chamber it, I thought they were smarter than that. Anyways, this is the fun part that you can try if you want but dont blame me if it doesnt work. If you hook up your amp and think that you need more power you can run both positives off the subs to the positive on the left channel and then take both negatives off the subs to the right negative on the amp. This will run your amp at two ohms. The amp, I will Gaurentee, says not to do this. My specific legacy amp did run in two ohms with out any problems, but it is not recomended by the company so I cant tell you for sure the out come. What I can tell you is that you will get approximently triple the power that you would get in 8 ohms, but the amp may heat up and shut down rather quickly. Its your choice.
I was quite surprised too that he would say unchambered. I currently have some cheap 12's in a box that is chambered and may see what the subs sound like in that box. The diamond'ss are DVC 10's. I'll play with what I've got and see what I can come up with. If anyone has anymore suggestions feel free to chime in.
Thanks,
Aron