bridging tube amps for mono



what affect does this have (if any...) on sound quality? clearly you get a power boost, but what are the pros and cons of using tube amp in this configuration?
blakeaudio

Showing 2 responses by eldartford

Con...The amps will see a low impedance load, which tube amps are not good at. For example: if the speaker is 4 ohms you ought to be using 2 ohm outputs which most amps don't have.

I once modified a stereo tube amp so that it inverted one channel, simply by reversing wiring at the output transformer. My purpose was to drive a center channel speaker bridged across the amp, while continuing to drive the left and right speakers in the normal manner. (I made the thing into a three channel amp, without adding any circuitry). The setup worked very well.
Blakeaudio...One way to think about why the amp sees lower impedance is...when operating normally (not bridged) the amp is driving current through the speaker to ground. However, when bridged, the amp is trying to drive current, not just to ground, but against the output of another amp which is "pushing back".