Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Can someone help me with "bridging" my amps??

I have a NAD 352 integrated amp{80wpc} and found a good deal on an NAD 214 amp {80wpc} and wanted to "bridge" them for a little more power on my Salk Veracity HT1's. Can anyone tell me if this is the correct way? The 352 has outs to hook up an additional amp. I should run RCA's from one to the other? Then I can leave one speaker hooked up already to my 352 and then run the other to the 214? Is this correct as long as one speaker is hooked up to L on one amp and R on the other.
Thanks in advance......

Todd, the first comment is that it would seem to be unlikely that you're using the maximum power capability of your 352 and need to be concerned about still more. Be that as it may, what you've described isn't "bridging", and wouldn't result in any additional power capacity being available. Connecting say the left channel power terminals of the 352 to the left speaker would use one of its 80 watt rated channels. Using the right channel pre-out of the 352 to drive one of the 214's power amps would result in the same power being available to the right speaker(and the same as the 352 alone).

Bridging(which the 352 doesn't have built-in provision for)requires feeding both positive terminals of two amplifier channels into the positive and negative terminals of a speaker. The polarity of one of the output channels has to be reversed by 180 degrees so that the two channels add together rather than running head-on into each other in the speaker and cancelling. If the receiver or amplifier doesn't have built-in circuitry to do this polarity reversal(it can't be done by switching wires or anything else simple)there are separate items available, often referred to as "inverters" to accomplish this. If two voltages are fed into the speaker instead of one, theoretically the power could be as much as quadrupled, since power is proportional to the square of the voltage and twice the voltage would yield four times the power. Of course the process isn't completely efficient and the typical result is about triple the power capacity. It's your call, but it'd be better if you haven't actually bought the 214 yet.

Thanks John, I'm not good at terminology these days. Just a new hobby of mine.....

Todd,
How do you like your Salk HT1? I have the Salk Veracity HT3 and just love them.

I love them. The highs that they bring along with the vocals are incredible. This is the one upgrade that I have made that seems to be worth the cost. I have been playing around with other parts of my system {hence my above post} and nothing seems to make alot of difference except the speakers. That is of course unless you want to spend ridiculous amounts of money. I run them with an X-Sub just to round out the bottom a bit. They are excellent speakers and so well made. I have read alot about the HT3's you have. They must be like nirvana.... By the way, my M60's are upstairs in my home theater system.