proper way to wire up my amp?

[Bournemouth James 0]

Ive just bought a 2nd hand vibe vp2 amp, it has no instructions

I want to wire up one 12" jl audio sub and 2 6x4 kenwood speakers

the amp is 2 chanel, it has low and high pass crossovers (not sure exsackely how that works), i want all the bass going to the sub, and mids and hi's going to the 6x4s

would i need separate crossovers if i wanted just the hi's and mids going to th 6x4s, or if conected the sub to the + on the right hand channel and the minus to the left hand channel, and connect the 6x4s in the normal way, would the sub automatically take all the bass if connected in this way?

do i wire it up a different way to that?

[Guest]

if its bi-wireable (sp?) then you will have the 6x9s connected normally, left +ve to left +ve etc, then, on the sub, run the -ve from one side of the amp, and the ve from the other. you should have a switch so select this option. and there is usually a small, if not to clear, diagram on the amp itself, near the terminals.

 

I have a 'coil' on the +ve feed of my sub, inside the box, and caps on the +ve feed to the 6x9s, this filters the high and low signals.

 

it has been ages (3 years) since I wired mine up, but thats the idea.

 

If the amp doesn't allow the sub and 6x9s to be wired at the same time, you'll need another amp to power one or the other, but I dunno the spec of your amp, so couldn't say off the top of my head.

 

Just read the spec, and it only says that the amp is bridgeable, which means that you can run the sub as I said above, using the +ve of one channel, and the -ve of another, but I don't think you can run the 6x9s at the same time.

 

Thera

[chrishill 0]

according to this site - http://www.spacecraft-uk.com/html/amplifiers.html

 

all vibe amps can run in tri mode, so you should be ok. (bridgeable, not bi-wireable, thats when you have 2 left and right wires for each speaker IIRC) as ']['H3R4POR says wire up you 6x9's as normal then use the + from one channel (left or right) and the - from the oposite channel to power the sub. If you have a built in crossover on the amp set it to 'full'.

 

I had a maystar amp wired up like that for about 2 weeks until it died on me and damaged all my speakers! :mad: not sure if that was a fault with the amp or just because i was pushing it a bit too hard by running it in tri-mode. I had a low pass filter connected to the + on the sub, and high pass on the 6x9s all of which i bought from halfarts for about £10 each.

 

you WILL need some sort of crossover/filter type thing for the sub otherwise you'll get a full mono signal going to the sub....not good!

[Guest]

ahhh, the site I looked at just said:

 

VP3 4 Channel Stereo Amplifier 4x 100 Watts Max Stereo @ 4Ohm 2x 300 Watts MaxBridged @ 4Ohm VIBE's Amps combine unique aesthetics with superior sound quality. All amps have 18dB crossovers and come with an in dash volume control as standard.

 

it didn't say it was tri-wireable. if thats the case then your sorted, just run the amp and the 6x9s at the same time.

 

I never used the internal crossovers in the amp, always got better results with a coil (inductor) and caps. but the amp I had was a few years old, so maybe the results are better now.

 

one thing to bear in mind though is, if you use a coil you lose quite a bit of power through it, when I bought mine they were talking in terms of 10%+ loss

[Bournemouth James 0]

Im still a little lost, i wont be runing 6x9s, i have 6x4 kenwoods that are in the original speaker pods, not sure what bi-wireable means, or tri-mode, or how to select it on the amp

 

here are some pictures, which might help

 

will i need coils for the 6x4s, or does the amp do it?

 

More help would be great, sorry about the picture quality (phone camera)

[chrishill 0]

doesnt matter if they're 6x9's or 6x4's the principle is the same. You'll need coils for them if you want to cut out the bass going to them. Set you amp to 'full' (or is it 'flat' cant quite see on the photo) then wire up the 6x4s as normal. At the top of the speaker connections you can see it says 'bridged' these are the terminals you should use for the sub. Basically you'll have two wires going in to the left - and the right +.

 

Tri-mode just means that the amp can handle running a set of speakers normally, and a sub 'bridged' at the same time.

[Guest]

you'll put caps inline with the 6x4s, not coils, the coil would go on the live feed for the sub.

 

Thera

 

(edited for spelling :roll: )

[chrishill 0]

oops :oops: well spotted mate ;)

[Guest]

no worries, I can imagine how much trouble he'd have trying to attach a coil to each +ve terminal, those things weigh a ton :lol:

 

Thera

[chrishill 0]

haha, yeah....

 

:? "who stome my trebble??"

[Bournemouth James 0]

Thanks for the advice guys

so what does hi pass and low pass mean on the amp then?, i though it meant you could put lows to sub and hi's and mids to 6x4s, at the same time

[Guest]

exactly that.

 

low pass lets low freq. through, ie: what subs want. hi pass lets the rest through, what mid and tweeters want :)

 

I'm drunk atm, but i'll explain it better tomorrow, but you are right

[chrishill 0]

I'm drunk atm,

 

good man! ;) had a few myself.

 

if you had a 4 channel amp that'd be spot on james, but because its a 2 channel, you can only do one or the other, so you can have all bass or all trebble. The HPF and LPF filters on a 2 channel amp effect both channels, where as on a 4 channel amp you can control each set of channels (left and right being one set) independantly.

 

right that doesnt make much sense, i think i'll have myself a crisp sandwich and go to bed, i'll let dave explain it better tomorrow...

[stevemac 0]

Thanks for the advice guys

so what does hi pass and low pass mean on the amp then?, i though it meant you could put lows to sub and hi's and mids to 6x4s, at the same time

 

In layman's terms :-

 

"pass" filters are a bit like electronic walls.

 

High pass lets the high frequency sinals through but stops the low frequency signals. High pass filters are used when fitting tweeters, etc.

 

Low pass lets the low frequency signals through but stops the high frequency signals. Low pass filters are used when fitting Subs.

 

If you're fitting full range speakers (2 way/3 way etc) then use no filter at all - these speakers are designed to use a full range (unfiltered) signal.

[Guest]

As chrishill says, the filter will effect all the channels.

 

This is known as an "active" crossover (filter).

 

If you are planning on running the Sub and the 6x4s off the same amp, you will have to turn this active filtering off, otherwise one of the sets of speakers (sub or mids) won't be happy, because you will be giving it the freq. it doesn't want.

 

Turn the active crossover on the amp OFF, and also that "BASS EQ" switch.

 

so, you'll have the "Crossover" switched to "FLAT" and the "BASS EQ" switched to "OFF".

 

You will obviously have to have some form of filter, so the sub gets his low freq. and th mids get their High freq. . For this you will use a "Passive" crossover. The pasive crossover is what we mentioned earlier, either a cap (capacitor) or a coil (inductor).

 

The caps are placed on the +ve feed to the mids (6x4s) and the coil is placed on the +ve feed to the sub.

 

so, you will need to buy (in addition to the sub, 6x4s, amp, and cable) 2 capacitors, and 1 coil.

 

Off the top of my head I can't tell you the exact rating, but there is a way around this, visit an audio dealer, they will all sell these things, make a note of the rating, and then ring up RS or Farnell and order it, because the Dealer will be about 10 times as expensive as Farnell.

 

I hope this helps mate, I know it seems a bit confusing the way i've written it, but it really isn't that bad.

 

Thera

[cliveyp 0]

I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he gets confused on reading this coz there seems to be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the correct little details.

 

Basically, like Dave says, you need to turn the amps x-over to FLAT, as changing to low will only feed lows to your 6x4's/sub and flipping to high would send high to your 6x4's/sub. Not good for at least one of your speakers in each case. I would, to make it easy, flip to flat with the bass eq off (as Dave says), then pop to Halfords or the like and get a treble blocker (the coil to pass only lows to your sub) and slap that in the positive line of your sub feed. Let your 6x4's run full range and see how they cope, they should be OK.

 

My major qualms (sp?) run with Daves explanation on x-overs though. Just because a x-over is external to the amp, does not make it passive. A passive filter is one that is not powered by an external supply. Active x-overs would take an RCA input and split into different range RCA outputs to take to amps. Passive would take an amplified speaker line as an input and output it as a split frequency speaker level.

 

HTH 8)

[Bournemouth James 0]

thanks for all the help guys, i understand now, i think i might run the 6x4s off the head unit for now, and just use the amp for the sub

[Henny 0]

thanks for all the help guys, i understand now, i think i might run the 6x4s off the head unit for now, and just use the amp for the sub

 

Good plan, Turn on the low pass filter, (switch to LPF) and turn on the BASS EQ. Wire your sub onto the +ve of one speaker and the -ve of the other so that you'll get a mono output from the amp and that should do you perfectly... 8)

 

TBH there's not an awful lot of point amping up your rear speakers, you'd do better to amp the front ones if you were going to amp any of 'em... 8)

[Guest]

My major qualms (sp?) run with Daves explanation on x-overs though. Just because a x-over is external to the amp, does not make it passive. A passive filter is one that is not powered by an external supply. Active x-overs would take an RCA input and split into different range RCA outputs to take to amps. Passive would take an amplified speaker line as an input and output it as a split frequency speaker level.

 

I don't beleive that I mentioned anything about an external device being passive or not? and I know full well what the difference is, I just didn't see the definition relavent to this thread.

 

There are 100s (literally) of examples of both active and passive crossovers out there on the market, But, as he seemed confused about what exactly he had to do with his set up, I tried to explain it with relavent components that he has, or will need to purchase. His amp has an active crossover, and a cap or coil is passive.

 

My major qualm (sp?) comes from you miss quoting me. I was trying to give him relavent info about the equipment he has, ie: an amp with an active crossover (filter) built in, and he will need to buy a coil (inductor) which is a passive device.

 

************************************************

 

Sorry that the post was a bit rambly Bournemouth 20VT James, I was in the middle of trying to prepare the spec of a power supply I need designing, and alot of the terms are similar, hence my chatterings. I did my best though :(

 

running the speakers off the head unit and sub off the amp will work fine, just remember to turn the switch on the amp to "low pass". Coil and caps aren't to expensive, and i'd recommend you buy them in the future, as you should get better results :)

 

Cheers,

 

Thera

[Guest]

thanks for all the help guys, i understand now, i think i might run the 6x4s off the head unit for now, and just use the amp for the sub

 

Good plan, Turn on the low pass filter, (switch to LPF) and turn on the BASS EQ. Wire your sub onto the +ve of one speaker and the -ve of the other so that you'll get a mono output from the amp and that should do you perfectly... 8)

 

TBH there's not an awful lot of point amping up your rear speakers, you'd do better to amp the front ones if you were going to amp any of 'em... 8)

 

TBH my ol 6x9s sounded quite abit better amped seperately (not off the head unit). But then that all depends what head unit you have, obviously the worse the head unit, the more difference there would be :)

 

Thera

[Henny 0]

['H3R4POR]

 

TBH my ol 6x9s sounded quite abit better amped seperately (not off the head unit). But then that all depends what head unit you have, obviously the worse the head unit, the more difference there would be :)

 

Thera

 

Yup, 6x9s are big enough for you to notice it, 6x4s are normally only any use as a fill in speaker... That's the way I've got my 6x4s wired up, I tired amping them, but there was almost no difference... 8)

[Guest]

TBH the output of headunits nowa days is easily enough to make that size speaker sound good, back in the day things were different ;)