Orion COBALT Series Installation Manual

SPEAKER CONNECTIONS
On the CO 230, CO 260, and CO 2100 amplifiers, the male plug (see Fig.10 on page 12) provides
Left and Right speaker connections. Speaker wire is not included. We recommend 16 GA or bigger,
size of XTREME speaker cable. On the CO 430 (4<hannel) amplifier, the male plug includes additional
connections for the rear channels.
In addition, each amplifier model can be configured for Summed-Mono Bridging or Mixed-Mono
Bridging (see Planning Your Car Audio System, starting on page 5).
Since low frequencies are non-directional (i.e., you feel the sound rather than locate it), and more
power is needed to reproduce bass sounds, sub-woofers can be driven in a mono configuration. The
higher, more directional sounds (e.g., vocals and solo instruments) don't require as much power for
loud reproduction; therefore, these signals can be reproduced in stereo, which provides the listener
with essential positions for accurate sound staging.
Summed-Mono Bridging provides more power (than a stereo channel) to one or more sub-woofer
speakers, as shown in Fig. 12 on page 15. The stereo signal, coming from a Control Head Unit, is
routed to the (left and right) inputs of an aaive crossover. The crossover's low (left and right) outputs
are summed to mono via an RCA "Y" cable enroute to the amplifier (left and right) inputs. One or
more loudspeakers is then connected (in parallel) to the amplifier's Left(-)/Right(+), while the Left(+)
and Right(-) are not used. The woofers must be connected so that the impedance is 4 ohms or above.
NOTE: Summed-Mono Bridging is used exclusiveiy to drive sub-woofer systems. M/ben planning this
configuration, make sure the totai nominal sub-woofer impedance is not less than four ohms. Use a
series wiring scheme for connecting two four-ohm sub-woofers, as the total nominal impedance of
eight ohms will not significantly change the sound output in the Summed-Mono Bridging mode.
Mixed-Mono Bridging is implemented by connecting one or more pairs of tweeters and mid-range
speakers to the stereo signals, whi le one or more sub-woofers receives the mono signal. Uni ike
Summed-Mono Bridging, all speaker wire connections are used to realize this system.
NOTE: For the CO 230 or CO 260, a front-to-rear Fader Control is not available with Mixed-Mono
Bridging, because only a single 2<hannel amplifier drives both satellite and sub-woofer speakers.
However, Fader Control is possible for the CO 430 amplifier, since this model provides four channels
Refer to page 9 for more details

Orion COBALT Series Specifications

General

Brand	Orion
Model	COBALT Series
Category	Amplifier
Language	English