Stereo & Electronics - Bought an early xmas present for my car...need help

I just bought all new speakers a headunit all the accessories and I have my old amp. I really want to use this amp so please dont rag on me, it sounds great except for one problem. Its a rockford fosgate 500x 4 channel amp but 1 channel is out, so its a 3 channel. My question is how do I wire up all the speakers to a 3 channel amp to get the best sounds? Thanks

this isnt the best way, but you can take both the rear speaker wires and put the two positives together, and the two negatives together and put them to that one rear channel. We have done this before at my shop with a 2 channel amp and 4 speakers, but the rea speakers will have half the power than the fronts, which is fine anyways cuz its the fronts that matter.

-Scott

What sk8 said is correct in some ways, but from my knowledge is a bit off in others. First of all you will need to hook up two speakers to one channel whether you choose the front or back that is up to you. As for the channel in which you only hook up one speaker, it will not decrease the power, rather it will decrease the ohm load. I assume your amp runs at 4 ohms stable as well as your speakers. You need to make sure your amp can handle a 2 ohm load. That is what will be happening when you ("bridge") run a 2 ohm load the one channel to run two speakers. It will drop the current in your amplifier to 2 ohms but you shouls see no change in power but rather a change in frequency response. I hope this helps. Anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong about the ohm load changes.

That is not bridged, first of all. And he wont be putting enough power through them to make the phase even matter. Do it my way, if it doesnt sound good undo it lol, but I guarentee it will be fine.

Good luck
-Scott

It is the same exact way we are talking about. The only thing different is the concern of losing power versus the concern of decreasing impedence. But your right it is not "bridging" im sorry it is simply running a 2 ohm load. Briding would be doubling the power via two channels.

yes, it will decrease the impedence, but the speakers will be receiving such little power that it wont matter much.

Your best bet is to run the two rear speakers off the deck, crank the front speakers, and fade it a bit to the front so the rear speakers dont sound so crappy when turned up. Most people dont even amp rear speakers unless they have like crazy speakers. Then you could buy like a JL 8W0 and use that last channel for a sub

-Scott

Do what Sk8 said in his first post or use 2 working channels for fronts and run rears off of deck power.

Keep in mind you won't have L and R if you do that.

But I have six speakers. So can I run the ones in the front to two channels? And then the woofers in the rear seats to one channel, and then the 4"'ers all the way in the back off the headunit? Will that work and will it sound pretty good?

That wont work. Theres no way to run mroe than 4 speakers + subs on an aftermarket deck. The factory deck sends a signal to an amp, which sends a signal to the factory subs, therefore you cant grab those wires behind the radio, and even if you could you would hav no where to put them. On that not, you should buy a single 10" sub like a rockford fosgate P1 or somthing cheap, run that off of your single channel, and your front 2 speakers off the other 2 channels and your rear speakers off of the deck.

You can PM me if you have any questions.

-Scott

But I have six speakers. So can I run the ones in the front to two channels? And then the woofers in the rear seats to one channel, and then the 4"'ers all the way in the back off the headunit? Will that work and will it sound pretty good?
If you have a Firebird coupe you actually have 10 speakers. If it's a Camaro or a convertible you have eight speakers.

When I first read this I assumed you were putting in an amp and aftermarket speakers. If you're still using the factory setup why would you want to replace the factory 8-channel amp with an aftermarket one that doesn't even work properly? The amp is the best part of a Monsoon system - you won't gain any improvement in sound by replacing it this way. If you want better sound on a budget, replace the head unit and/or the speakers.

The car didnt come with the monsoon system, and i am replacing everything, install is tomorro i hope it turns out good.

The car didnt come with the monsoon system, and i am replacing everything, install is tomorro i hope it turns out good.
Okay, what model of car are we talking about (particularly year)? Because if it's 98 or newer and has speakers in the hatch area then it's a Monsoon. If it's 98 or newer but not a Monsoon then it doesn't have hatch speakers. Earlier Firebirds had a 10-speaker system that wasn't called Monsoon but had speakers in the hatch area. They were the same speaker and amp setup - it just wasn't called Monsoon.

In any case, you're going to lose some sound using that amp. It's a four channel amp which means you've got left and right channels for both front and rear. The non-functioning channel will mean you're missing one corner of the sound. As Formula350 said, you won't have stereo from the back because you'll be running both speakers off of one channel. Connecting a sub might not be too bad because the bass signal is usually the same on both channels so you won't notice the loss of stereo.

I hope it works for you but I expect we'll be hearing more from you after the install...