Bridging Adapter For Power Amplifiers

© 1999, Rod Elliott - ESP

Updated 12 Jan 2007
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  Please Note:  PCBs are available for this project.  Click the image for details.

A stereo power amplifier is limited in its output power by two main factors - the
impedance of the load and the internal power supply voltage.  To obtain more power,
one has limited choices - other than the purchase of a more powerful amp.

The load impedance can be lowered, but if the load happens to be a pair of standard
loudspeakers this is not viable, since the impedance is set by the drivers themselves. 
Increasing the power supply voltage is generally a bad idea, since most commercial
amps do not have a wide safety margin with component ratings, and will probably be
destroyed if the voltage were to be raised sufficiently to obtain even 50% more power.

The bridging adapter shown in Figure 1 can make an amplifier produce almost 4 times
the power for the same impedance - but beware of the pitfalls.  Basically, these are:

 The amplifier must be rated to drive a load impedance which is half that of the
speakers to be connected !
 Although some forms of distortion may cancel, a primary form of amplifier non-
linearity - crossover distortion - will be worse because ...
    Both amplifiers in bridge will cross the zero volt point at the same time
 The impedance is lower, there is more current, so each amplifier's contribution
will be greater

Figure 1 - Basic (Conventional) Power Amp Bridging Adapter

Construction is not critical, and the adapter has unity gain for each output.  Naturally,
1% metal film resistors should be used, and the choice of opamp is not too critical - the
TL072 is perfectly acceptable in this configuration, but feel free to use the opamp of
your choice.  Note that if interconnect leads are to be used from the adapter to the
power amp, the 100 Ohm resistors shown must be placed in series with each output to
prevent instability - this is important, as an oscillating adapter will inject an AC voltage of
perhaps hundreds of kilohertz into the amp's input, with the very real possibility of
destruction of the output transistors.  Although not shown in either schematic here,
bypass capacitors are needed from the opamp's supply pins to earth/ ground - do not
leave these out or the opamps will oscillate !

The power supply may be taken from the preamp supply (this should be ±12V to ±15V). 
The preamp output is connected to the adapter's input, and for the sake of convention,
connect the +OUT to the Left power amp's input, and the -OUT to the Right amp's input.

Naturally, for stereo two circuits are needed, as well as a second (preferably identical)
stereo power amp.  This arrangement is also very useful to convert an otherwise
mediocre stereo power amp into a perfectly acceptable sub-woofer amplifier, having
plenty of power (depending on the power of the original, of course).

Quality is not so much of an issue for a sub, since only the low frequencies are
reproduced, and amplifier distortion is as nothing to the distortion generated by a
loudspeaker at low frequencies and high excursions.  The disadvantage of the
arrangement shown above is that the input impedance is only 50k (R1 || R4), and the
noise contribution from U1B will be higher than expected because of the high
resistances.

Using P87B As A Bridging Adapter

Using a circuit such as the P87B has a number of advantages.  The primary advantage
is that the input impedance can be a great deal higher because of the input buffer (U1). 
Although R102 is shown as 100k, it can be reduced to 22k or increased to 1Meg (or
more) with no other changes needed.  For high input impedance using the basic
arrangement of Figure 1, the impedances around the second inverting opamp become
excessive, and this causes noise problems.  Figure 2 has no such restriction.  The input
impedance can cause some noise if the source impedance is particularly high, but this
is uncommon.  Even a typical valve preamp will have an output impedance that's
usually less than 47k, so R102 (and R202 - not shown) can be increased to 1Meg with
no noise penalty.

Note that if the circuit is used with a valve preamp, you will need to protect the inputs
from high voltages - see MOSFET Follower & Circuit Protection From High Voltages for
the details of how to protect the circuit from damage.

Figure 2 - P87B used as Bridging Adapter

Using the P87B circuit means that the preamp sees only the impedance set by
R102/202 (R202 is in the second channel), and each channel of the power amp sees a
source impedance of about 100 ohms.  This low impedance means that fairly long
interconnects can be used if needed, with no loss of treble.

The loudspeaker is connected between the amplifier's + outputs only,

and neither side of the speaker can be earthed or connected to any
other amplifier output - either of these conditions WILL blow up your
amplifier.

Testing

I have had a few constructors who have had problems - mainly due to inexperience.  I
have been doing this stuff for so long that I often forget that many of my readers are
novices, and this looks really simple, so off they go and promptly have problems I
haven't covered.  I shall attempt to remedy the situation forthwith!

When the unit is built, after checking that power is correct (no more than ±15V), some
basic tests need to be done.

 First, make sure that there is no appreciable DC offset at the outputs.  Generally
it should be no more than about 5mV, and will generally be less.  More than
about 50mV means you may have a problem, so switch off and check your work
carefully.  Some opamps may have a relatively high DC offset if the input resistor
(R102/202) is greater than 22k.
 Apply a signal to the input, and measure the level (a signal generator is best for
this).  Try for an input of about 1V RMS.
 Measure the AC voltage at each output to ground.  It should be exactly the same
as the input for both outputs.
 Measure the AC voltage between the two 'hot' (signal) outputs (at the connector
or the 100 ohm resistors).  It should be exactly double the input voltage.

If all the above tests are OK, you can connect the output of your preamp to the input of
the adaptor.  Just for safety's sake (and before you connect your power amps),
measure the DC output voltages again.  If the +OUT terminal now shows a DC voltage
where none was evident before, check the -OUT terminal.  You will probably find that it
has the same voltage, but of opposite polarity.  This means that there is DC from the
preamp, so use a capacitor (1µF will be ok for either version) in series with the input to
get rid of it (or fix the preamp, which may be faulty).

If the power amp has a volume control (or controls), make sure that both channels are
set to maximum.  Do not connect a speaker until you have verified that the amps'
outputs are at zero volts (±100mV or so), and that there are no large voltage swings
when the amp (or adaptor) are turned on or off.  If possible, the power to the adaptor
should be applied first.  It is possible to leave it on permanently if powered from an AC
adaptor, as current drain is very low.

Once these tests have been completed, you may connect the speaker.  Remember that
the power will be four times that from a single channel of the amp for the same
impedance (a 6dB increase), so overdriving the speakers is quite possible.  Use the
utmost care, especially with expensive speakers.
Bridging Principles

For those who have not used bridging or who do not understand the principles, a short
explanation of how the adapter is used and how this almost quadruples the output
power is called for.

Before you even contemplate using bridging, make absolutely certain that the amplifiers
used are capable (and designed for) half the speaker impedance.  If you have 8 ohm
speakers, the amps must be able to drive 4 ohms.  With 4 ohm speakers, the amps
must be able to drive 2 ohms - most can't, so you must not attempt to bridge amplifiers
into 4 ohm loads.  If you happen to have speakers rated at less than 4 ohms, then don't
even try - you will blow up your amplifiers!  They might survive for a little while, but
failure is inevitable.

The adapter is connected between the preamplifier and the power amps.  The power
amps must be the same - power rating, minimum impedance rating, etc.  Generally, a
stereo power amp is used, so when connected in bridge mode we are assured that the
amplifiers are more or less identical.

Normally, the speaker is driven from the amplifier output to ground, and the AC swing is
limited by the supply voltages in the amp.  Consider a 50 Watt per channel power amp -
50W into 8 Ohms requires a signal voltage of 20V RMS:

P = V  / R
2

P = 20  / 8
2

P = 400 / 8 = 50 Watts
To achieve this, the peak voltage is just over ±28V (20 * 1.414), and a power supply
voltage of about ±35V will generally be used to allow for losses and mains voltage
variations.

The same amplifier into 4 Ohms will deliver close to 100W - provided the power supply
does not collapse under the load.  For both these examples, only one side of the
loudspeaker is driven, and the other is grounded.

Now, if a second amplifier is connected so that its output is exactly 180 degrees out of
phase with the first (i.e. inverted), and connected to the normally grounded side of the
speaker, as one speaker terminal is driven positive, the other is driven negative by the
same amount.
 Figure 3 - Voltages Applied to the Loudspeaker Using Bridging

Figure 3 shows this, with the waveforms at each speaker terminal shown.  As you can
see, as one terminal is driven positive, the other is driven negative by the same amount,
and although a sine wave is shown, the principle is not changed by the signal
waveform.  (Note that both waveforms should be viewed from left to right, otherwise the
diagram would indicate zero output from the speakers - which is exactly what
you will get if the adapter is not used.)

At maximum power, the 8 Ohm loudspeaker now 'sees' double the voltage that it would
receive from one amp alone.  Using the formula above, we get:

P = V  / R
2

P = 40  / 8
2

P = 1600 / 8 = 200 Watts

Since the voltage across the speaker is doubled, naturally the current through it is also
doubled, and that is the reason that each amplifier must be capable of driving half the
normal speaker impedance.  This technique is very common in car audio systems,
because the nominal 12V (typically around 13.8V when the engine is running) of a car's
electrical system is too low to obtain much power except into very low impedances.

Loudspeakers are very difficult to make if the impedance is too low, because there are
too few turns of wire in the voice coil, and efficiency is lost.  Four Ohms is a reasonable
minimum, but even with this impedance a non-bridged car amplifier is still only capable
of a maximum of about 5 Watts.  By using bridging, close to 20W is now possible, with
each amplifier driving the equivalent of 2 Ohms.

This is the reason for all the dire warnings about not grounding either speaker lead of a
car audio system - because each lead is the output of an amplifier, shorting it to ground
will destroy the power amp because the amplifier outputs almost invariably have a DC
voltage of around 6.5V with no signal.  If shorted to another speaker lead nothing will
happen until signal is applied, and the amp will usually die as a result.

The same principle applies to the bridged connection shown here - no connection other
than to the speakers is possible without damaging the amplifier.

Car Amplifiers
Car amps generally have a single supply voltage, nominally +12V with respect to the
chassis.  The circuit shown above expects a dual supply, and while this is easy enough
to do, it adds complexity for no good reason.  If the inverter opamp is biased to half the
battery voltage, it can perform the signal inversion, and we only need to capacitively
couple the input and output.  This simplified version is shown below.

Figure 4 - Single Supply Version For Car Installations

As shown, there is no buffer for the direct signal - it's simply passed through to the
output.  The inverting stage will always provide a signal that is exactly equal but
opposite (in phase).  Even if the power amp loads the source signal, the inverter will
invert that reduced level to maintain the proper signal level to each power amp.  It's less
'elegant' than the versions shown earlier, but it's also simpler.  The second channel (for
stereo) uses the other half of the opamp, and uses the same ½Supply (Vcc/2) bias
voltage to reduce component count.

Because a car's electrical system is rather hostile, I've included R1, C1 and D1.  R1
limits the peak current, and should be rated for at least 1W.  Zener diode D1 clamps the
maximum voltage to 15V, protecting the opamp and C1 from over-voltage.  C1 is
required for any opamp to bypass the supply.  The incoming signal is not buffered - it's
used directly to one power amp input, and the inverted output is applied to the other.

The circuit shown in Figure 4 is about as simple as it gets, but it will still work well.  You
can't use the PCB for this though, because there's no provision for the ½Supply rail to
bias the opamps properly to ensure correct operation.