im thinking of hooking my amp up under my drivers or passengers seat so that when i need space in the back of my SUV i can just unhook the sub box and take it out and not have to worry about having the amp and cables back there in the way...my question is...
if i hook my amp up under one of my front seats, im going to have to run longer speaker cables fromt he amp to the subs, is this going to reduce the sound quality and put stress on the amp/subs?
No, not that short of a distance will the speaker wires make any sound differance as long as you use the proper wire guage for the amp. But you may have a heat build up problem. To correct this though, you can purchase a 12 volt muffin fan and mount it on the heat sinks on the amp.
thanks for the tips man, what do you suggest for speaker wire guage for between the amp and subs? im running 4 guage power cable off the battery to the amp because its an 1100watt mono amp...i think i have 14 or 16 guage speaker wire but not sure on that
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2 ohm load 4 ohm load 6 ohm load 8 ohm load
Wire Size
22 AWG 3 feet max 6 feet max 9 feet max 12 feet max
20 AWG 5 feet max 10 feet max 15 feet max 20 feet max
18 AWG 8 feet max 15 feet max 23 feet max 30 feet max
16 AWG 12 feet max 25 feet max 37 feet max 50 feet max
14 AWG 20 feet max 40 feet max
12 AWG 31 feet max
10 AWG 50 feet max
For example: you can use#18 wire for a 25 foot run to a nominal 8 ohm speaker, but if the run is increased to 35 feet, #16 wire must be used. 50 feet is the maximum recommended length for normal line cord or Romex solid copper wire. This length is more than adequate for most installations. An explanation is further down on this page titled "What about Wires Longer Than 50 Feet?".
A wire resistance of less than 5% of the nominal speaker impedance is chosen to work well with almost all speaker systems and can be considered conservative. Even a resistance of less than 10% of the nominal value could be used with some speakers and would not be audible. A further explanation can be found in the next section.