I'm trying to help a friend set up his system and he wants to power a dual voice coil sub with two amps (one amp hooked up to each voice coil). My question is whether or not this is recommended, and what do we need to pay attention to during setup (as far as things like matching gain settings, etc.)? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks
Thanks for the reply Optidriven. The sub would be an ID Max 12 with dual 2ohm voice coils. The amps would be Eclipse XA1000s, each putting out 400 watts @ 2ohms mono. I'm sure they're not strappable but could you clarify what that means? They would be identical but only as much as a mass produced amp can get if you know what I mean.
I've done it with a NINe.4 but it was slightly different. I bridged the rear channels, bridged the front channels, and matched the gains. Then checked again to make sure the gains were matched. It worked fine. I'm not sure I'd want to do it permanently though. Very slight differences in amplitude might be alright for a short time but after a while your sub might fall apart. I'm no expert but that's my guess.
strapping is the same as bridging, but instead of bridging two channels you bridge two amps. It doesn't look like the xa1000 is specifically designed to be strapped, but I think you'd be ok running an amp on each coil as long as you follow Cam's suggestion and make sure each amp is set up as close to the same as possible.