mono and stereo confusion

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   I am building my first reggae sound system and now at the stage of installing drivers and buying amps.as it will be in mono and my amps are stereo or bridge do I split the mono into two cables to go into the amp or use bridge mode and wire the speakers in parallel decreasing the ohms???
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks.

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leowood Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New Member Joined: 02 December 2021 Location: suffolk Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote leowood Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: mono and stereo confusion Posted: 02 December 2021 at 10:25pm
	I am building my first reggae sound system and now at the stage of installing drivers and buying amps. as it will be in mono and my amps are stereo or bridge do I split the mono into two cables to go into the amp or use bridge mode and wire the speakers in parallel decreasing the ohms??? any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

Esc4pe Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Registered User Joined: 08 August 2021 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 165	Post Options Post Reply Quote Esc4pe Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 02 December 2021 at 10:30pm
	If you’re wanting to use two channels of the amp (‘stereo’) to play the same thing I always just have xlr splitters to hand.

leowood Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New Member Joined: 02 December 2021 Location: suffolk Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote leowood Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 02 December 2021 at 10:32pm
	Thank you, and they are used inbetween the crossover and the power amp?

Tinnitus Rex Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Registered User Joined: 31 October 2020 Status: Offline Points: 274	Post Options Post Reply Quote Tinnitus Rex Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 02 December 2021 at 10:41pm
	If youve got a PARALEL -mono switch on your amps , you just one wire into the amp and it sends it to the other input ,this is the same as a Y -split lead ( 1 in 2 out) BRIDGE -mono is a whole different thing ,where you wire the speakers across chan1 + to chan2 + (no -) If an amp is used in BRIDGE its minimum speaker impedance is twice that of non BRIDGE ( if it was 4 ohms stereo it is now 8 ohms minimum bridge ) Bridge can be useful but is quite unnecessary ,there is no real advantage. how many speakers do you want to connect ? what speakers and what amp/s? So maybe just use a Y split lead Edited by Tinnitus Rex - 02 December 2021 at 10:47pm
	"couldn't we just like... use headphones?"

imageoven Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Old Croc Joined: 28 March 2007 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 2186	Post Options Post Reply Quote imageoven Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 03 December 2021 at 8:37am
	Many modern amps will have dual inputs on each channel (sometimes one XLR and one 1/4" jack), you can go into one, and link out of the other. This is much neater when using lots of amps with the same input, than having multiple cable splits. And yes, if you choose to use xlr splitters, they would go between the crossover and amplifier.
	Keep pushing on, things are gonna get better.

leowood Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New Member Joined: 02 December 2021 Location: suffolk Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote leowood Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 03 December 2021 at 8:45am
	Hello there. Thanks for your explanation. It’s a five way stack with 2 sub 2 bass 2mid 2 horn and 4 tweeters but just two inputs s for those I’m using wax and crown amps and for the sub there will be one numark amp for each speaker. So for the other speaker I should use a splitter and treat it as if it was in stereo. That works well as I have bought most of my amps with that in mind. Thank you.

leowood Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New Member Joined: 02 December 2021 Location: suffolk Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote leowood Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 03 December 2021 at 8:48am
	Yes I’ve seen that on a few of my amps By linking them do you mean having your input into say the xlr on the left channel and the unused input would like over to the right channel input with a short cable? Thanks

jeff generik Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Registered User Joined: 25 November 2006 Location: Dartmouth,Devon Status: Offline Points: 211	Post Options Post Reply Quote jeff generik Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 10 December 2021 at 11:18pm
	If you want to run your system in mono in one big stack I would have thought you want to run a mono feed from your mixer into a four way crossover and parallel input amps or even use a different bandwidth feed on the same amp, try your best to avoid bridge mode less chance of loosing all one bandwidth at a gig if something decides to go pop!

bob4 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Old Croc Joined: 29 February 2004 Location: Finland/Germany Status: Offline Points: 1843	Post Options Post Reply Quote bob4 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 11 December 2021 at 10:27am
	Apparently the OP is still grappling with basic terminology and concepts...... In order to get useful advice, please list all your equipment from source to amplifiers Your SOURCE (turntable, cd player, DAC output ) is most probably stereo. The music has been mixed for stereo playback with a pair of spaced loudspeakers for best effect. Playing music to a crowd, you have a few options: 1) play back a STEREO SIGNAL with two separate speakers/stacks ("true stereo") 2) play back a STEREO SIGNAL with all loudspeakers stacked in one MONO STACK 3) play back a MONO SIGNAL with a MONO STACK 4) any other combination, with mono or stereo delay/fill speakers, or even crazier The stereo/mono modes on amplifiers are just terminology. In a bigger system you might use multiple amps running each in parallel or bridge mono on their own, but forming a stereo system together. To play in mono from a stereo source, the signal needs to be summed to mono. That can be done in a mixer, a reggae preamp, or a loudspeaker management/dsp processor such as the behringer dcx 2496 or equivalent. You need to decide for yourself what you want to do and how. Apparently you want to have a mono stack. Do you want to play back a mono or stereo signal? If you want mono, in which part of your signal chain do you do the summing? Edited by bob4 - 11 December 2021 at 10:30am