What should I upgrade?

Dcrugby- What power cables did you purchase?

Is it possible to bridge my s300 so it outputs 600w and buy another s300 to bridge? If so, how does one "bridge" an amp?

Is it possible to bridge my s300 so it outputs 600w and buy another s300 to bridge? If so, how does one "bridge" an amp?

Hi Devon,

No, a fully balanced stereo amplifier such as yours can in a sense be thought of as being two amplifiers on a single chassis, each of which is already bridged. By that I mean that each channel contains two amplifiers, one of which amplifies a signal that is inverted in phase relative to the signal being processed by the other amplifier, with the speaker being connected between the "hot" outputs of the two amplifiers. That results in twice as much voltage appearing across the speaker, relative to what a single-ended (unbalanced) amplifier with otherwise identical characteristics would provide.

So bridging a single speaker between one of the output terminals of one channel and one of the output terminals of the other channel, with the inputs to the two channels wired out-of-phase relative to each other, would not result in any added power capability.

Also, fyi, bridging results in the amplifier seeing the speaker impedance divided by two, so your nominally 4 ohm speakers would be seen as 2 ohms, which many amplifiers cannot handle. A major reason that Bel Canto specifies a 4 ohm minimum speaker impedance for your amplifier figures to be that the factor of 2 applies in the case of fully balanced operation as well.

Regards,
-- Al

Hi Develyn,

Your Kimber Cables are fine, Kimber Cables are excellent and represent very good value for the money, and as you go up the line they certainly do get better, like most things.

Keep in mind that when tweaking your system with, racks, cables, accessories or whatever, (and they all do improve the sound) you will improve what you already have, but it will not take your level of sound reproduction to completely new areas, that currently do not exist in your system, such as lower bass octaves. For that, you need to upgrade or add equipment.

I wouldn't bridge your amp either, 300 watts into 4 ohms is plenty of power for the 1.6's and from what others stated above it sounds like a bad idea. I also thought that bridging can create additional distortion, clipping or whatever.., especially when compared to upgrading to monoblocks.

Rich