Stereo amp to drive one center channel speaker?


I'm venturing into surround sound & I have all this equipment laying around. I have a two channel counterpoint amp that I would like to use to drive one speaker.

How do I hook it up?
Any danger of blowing up either the speaker or the amp.
If I use both channels will the impence change & affect the sound?
joeadd

Showing 1 response by jwrobinson

The first thing is to determine whether the amp can be bridged to mono. If there is a switch for this you are probably ok. If not, you won't be able to bridge without internal adjustments. I would not do this myself. Call the manufacturer.

The second thing to consider is that when you bridge to mono, you are effectively halving the load impedance since each channel only sees and amplifies half the wave form.
Now this might work if the speakers have a benign impedance, say a resistive 8 ohm load.

I don't know of any reason why you can't just use one channel of the amp to drive a speaker. Again, I would consult with the manufacturer.

Most manufacturers of speakers I've owned (mostly electrostatics/planars) don't recommend bridging for the above reason.

Jim