I had an aftermarket system installed into my 2003 brickyard a few years ago - crappy jvc HU, new speakers, custom sub enclosure in the stock sub location, and an Alpine amp. The JVC headunit is getting long in the tooth, so I've ordered a Pioneer AVIC-N2. (I've ordered the XM NavTraffic box and a Farenheit 7000 as well, but that's another post entirely!)

Anyway, the Alpine amp - MRP-320, which is probably 4 years old - has 4 inputs (FL, FR, RL, RR), but 5 outputs (incl. subwoofer.)
I have another 4 channel amp sitting around unused - an Xtant 404m. It's got 4 input channels and 4 output channels.

The question is this: does it make sense to add the Xtant amp, and move the subwoofer from the Alpine to the Xtant? I'd probably bridge two channels on the Xtant, but that would leave the other two channels undriven. It would also leave the Alpine's subwoofer output unconnected.

Any thoughts? Any reason I shouldn't do this? I'd love to hear any thoughts people might have.

Thanks,
George

 

Seperate amps is never a bad idea. Not often a good idea though - if the amplifier manufacture is doing a good job with the subwoofer's crossover and isolating the power supplies they can sound as good or better than seperate amplifiers.

The Pioneer AVIC N2 has a dedicated subwoofer output with a head-end adjustable crossover point which might be better than the external subwoofer crossover that you're going to need or use.

As long as you've got the other amp for "free" and have the mounting space for it, why not? The Pioneer has two subwoofer outputs to drive all four of your amps (two bridged to two inputs) so if you want two subwoofer drivers so much the better.