Hello all -

I'm fairly knowledgeable about electronics, but when it comes to what you can do with what speakers and what amplifiers, I get lost real quick. 4 ohm, 8 ohm, combinations of the two, etc... makes my head spin.

Anyway, here'* what I have in the car (It was all already installed when I bought it).

Up front there are 4 speakers, 2 in each door, midrange and tweeter I suppose. I don't even know if they still call 'em tweeters. High range? Hell, I dunno. Anyway each of those hooks to a black box which I suppose is a crossover; there are 6 terminals on it. 2 for signal input and one pair each for low and high speaker outputs.

I don't know the model of the front speakers, wish I'd of checked when I had the door panels off. However, all the speakers in the car are made by Focal (as are the crossovers), a company I can't seem to find much about on google.

In the back is more or less the same thing, and they are Focal model # 6KL.

So, 8 speakers in total.

There is also an amp, JL Audio 300/4. It has a cable thick enough to power my house running up to the battery, and another just as thick cable very solidly grounded to the frame.

Here'* my problem....

The speakers in the back are "bridged", which I'm sure the guys that hang out in here know what that means... but I'll go ahead and describe it anyway. The inputs to the crossovers are connected together, + to + and - to -, and then the + pair hooks to the right rear + output of the amp, and the - pair hooks to the left rear - output of the amp, leaving the right rear - and left rear + unused. This is only the case for the rear speakers. The fronts all go seperately + to + and - to - for both left and right sides.

I'd prefer that the rear speakers be on seperate channels, but I'm guessing that the "4" in the JL model 300/4 means you can hook up a total of 4 speakers, unless you do the bridging thing.

I guess I don't really have a problem with them being bridged, it could easily turn out that if they weren't, I'd like the sound better if I just left it the way it is. Truth be told, my ears probably aren't sensitive enough to tell the diffference if I just had one speaker sitting in the middle of the car driven by a 1985 Kraco.

Except I do prefer vinyl over CD'* any day of the week.

So, after all the blabber you've endured, the question: Is it not possible to hook all the speakers up on their own channels?

I wish I could provide more info about the impedance of the speakers, I suppose I could ohm them out if it helps any.

Thanks for any info, I'm going to go read more of the forum posts and see if I can learn how to tune this system and in the process probably find the answers to my own questions.

It'* all driven by a Kenwood KDC-MP919 head unit, which has more options on it than I can even begin to guess what to do with (you don't even want to know how many buttons you have to press just get to the balance option. The one thing about it I really like is it folds up and hides itself when you turn it off).

The amp has enough dials and dip switches to make it space shuttle compatible.

When I was a kid, you took your pioneer super tuner, and hooked your 6x9'* to it and you were done..... things seem to have gotten more complicated.

Thanks in advance for any comments -

Matt

focal make some of the best speakers on the planet. i just goggled it for fun because i can't believe there isn't alot of info about them on the net...there is tons of info...
http://www.google.com/search?q=focal...ient=firefox-a

next the amp is bridged so the front speakers get more power. basically 2x as much power.
you don't have to have it bridged. undo it and see how you like it.
However i would only un-bridge if you are then going to power your rear speakers. but then again all that really matters is your front sound stage. the rear is just for fill and should be fine running off the hu.

hope this helps...

oh and the power wire is probably only 4awg which isn't much in terms of CA. also you have to worry about V drop on long runs thus why it'* common to use a lower gauge wire.

ignore my 1st post. i newbed myself

i just reread what you wrote and it makes slightly better sense now.

there is no reason to have the rears bridged. you gain nothing by having the rear bridged. infact you don't want them bridged. put the correct wires to the correct Xovers.

qed

digital > vynal