How do you wire two amplifiers to one 12 volt battery?

Question

do you just us a jumper from the amp that has the power? so one amp would have two wires one the battery, remote, gorund and just run the jumper to the other?

Answer 1

That would work, but the main wires to/from the battery have to be big enough to power both amps.

Answer 2

You can do it two ways. Wire both directly from the battery or wire one from the battery and take an extra wire of the same guage and stuff it in there with the hot wire, then connect it to the other amp's power terminal. You can ground them seperately or with the other option, also.

Answer 3

For Power:

You need a distribution block with twice the wire gauge going to it, then recommended gauge wire going to each amp.

Example:

from battery - *2 AWG wire to block, *4 AWG from block to each amp with fuses between block and each amps. Ground wires must also be as short as possible (18" or less).

Fuses must be within 18" of battery.

ANY OTHER WAY WILL RESULT IN WIRE OVERHEATING AND POSSIBLE FIRE!!!!

*Check the requirements the manufacturer suggests for wire sizes and use twice that size to the distribution block.

Remote wire can just be ran from one to the other just use twice the size recommended.

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Your system won't mean squat without a well designed box to put your subs in. Some manufacturers have recommendations as to dimensions of various types of boxes. It is best to find someone who builds boxes if you go with something other than a sealed box.

You should always match up RMS (Root Mean Square) watts of Subs and amp per channel as well as impedance's(resistances).

If your amp is rated at 4Ω don't subject it to 2Ω, it will fry.

Here is the formula for subs in parallel:

Z = 1 / (1/sub1 + 1/sub2 + 1/sub3 + ....)

For series, just add them up (sub1 + sub2 + ...).

You can mix and match these equations to get the right impedance required by your amp.

Example: 4 subs @ 4Ω each. If I connect two in parallel and the other two in parallel and tie the two pairs in series, I would have a total impedance(resistance) of 4Ω. So to the amp, it's just one sub.

You should use a capacitor as well.

Recommend for every 500 watts MAX you use a .5 Farad cap
Example: 1000 watts MAX - 1 Farad cap

Try http://www.soundomain.com/shop you can find some really good deals, and this site is manufacturer certified. VERY IMPORTANT WHEN SHOPPING ON-LINE!!!

You will also need what's called a "line level converter" if your stock head unit doesn't have RCA outputs or your amp doesn't have high-level inputs.

If you like I can send you some plans for reference. My plans are for a 4-th order band pass bass box that holds two 12's. Also included are java calculators you can use to figure parallel and series values given Ω values.
Just e-mail me [e-mail]

I chose Blaupunkt TSw1200 subs with a Sony Xplōd XM2200GTX and it moves my coffee table around when I'm in the driveway.

My amp is 1200 watts, subs are 600 watts

Answer 4

the easiest way is to make sure your amps are bridgable and bridge them together, make sure your fuses are good for any kind of wiring and connect the ground cable to the frame of the vehicle and the live wire straight to the battery. Hope this helps good luck.

Answer 5

To get power to both amps use a power block spliter feed your main power to it then from the power block to your amps this also helps to fuse your amps and protect them from getting to much current.

Answer 6

just buy a distribution block for 10 bucks

Answer 7

get a distribution block