How to wire my Cyrus Smartpower plus amps

Hi There,
Can anybody help me out. At present my system comprises of Cyrus CDI player, Cyrus 6 intergrated amp connected to a Smartpower plus power amp which is currently running in Stereo mode. My speakers are bowers and Wilkins CM8s. I have just purchased a second hand additional Smartpower plus amp which I want to add to my system to run in mono mode.
I am hoping this will alleviate the problem of overheating and cutting out at high volume.
I would like to know if this should help and can you tell me the way to wire this ie each power amp running one speaker.
Thankyou
Digbarnes

 

If running one amp in stereo is causing overheating, sadly running each amp in mono will make it worse. Amps run in mono usually are bridged, so you get theoretically four times the power (in practice, a little less), because each amplifier sees half the load impedance, but driving into a more demanding load makes the amp run hotter.

You can parallel a stereo amplifier into a mono amp that then has the same output power but can drive twice the current, so will run cooler. The problem is that whilst bridging as above can be done easily externally to the amp, paralleling requires internal modifications, or some messy external wiring as the two halves have to be VERY closely matched for gain and with some additional components for equal current sharing.

Best advice I can give is to sell both power amps and buy one larger amp more suited to your needs. There are numerous power amps that will drive your 'speakers, especially if you look at Pro studio amps rather than HiFi.

S

 

Thankyou for the reply, I was advised to buy an additional amp and run in mono to boost the output.

Digbarnes

 

That's correct, but it will run hotter in bridged mono, so if your stereo amp is already shutting down due to overheating, bridged mono will just make it worse.

S

 

Ok, Thankyou for your help

Digbarnes