Setting up Dual amps

[bradl79 10+ year member]

I am looking at setting up dual amps but i have 8 Gauge power wire installed, i am trying to power a 140w rms and a 4ch 50w rms so it will be 340w rms and the power wire is about 10 to 12 feet long, my ? is will the 8 gauge be powerful enough to handle just 340w rms, also to i have my gains set and they are both not at nom gain so will that reduce the rms too?

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[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

One powering a sub and one powering some comps/coaxs you should be fine...

 

[bradl79 10+ year member]

yeah the mono will power a 150rms sub and the 4ch will power the fronts and rears will power 50rms x 4rms, its actually about 12' of power wire. so will that be ok?

 

[Josef344]

yeah the mono will power a 150rms sub and the 4ch will power the fronts and rears will power 50rms x 4rms, its actually about 12' of power wire. so will that be ok?

I would use a 4 gauge wire and distribute it to 2 8 gauge.

1 for your sub and 1 for your mids and highs.

 

[fuster 10+ year member]

The answer to your question depends on the total current draw of both amps. Without doing the numbers, in general an 8 gauge wire running longer than 8 feet will not adequately service 400 watts of power from one or more amplifiers. To know for sure, you will need to calculate the total maximum current draw of the two amplifiers. For what you have, it is hard to say based on the information you provided.

If you run one amplifier on a subwoofer and you are operating the amplifier at less than 4 ohms, you will require a larger diameter wire for a 12 foot run to make sure the power supply on the board of the amp does not lose current during a large power demand.

If one or both amplifiers are Class D designs, they might not require a lot of current. If they are AB designs, I would prefer to use 4 gauge wire for your set up, and fuse the wire to protect it from a fire by fusing at the total current rating of both amplifiers added together. Make sure your ground wire for each amp is at least the same gauge as the power wire.

 

[bradl79 10+ year member]

Multi CH amp for fronts and rears are on an alpine mrp f300 class D and the one to power sub is kicker dx250.1 class d. The alpine is set at 14.14 volts for fronts and rears. The sub is set at 23.66 all are @ 4ohms