Parasound HCA-1500A - Manual (Page 5)

-5-
Making Connections to Your Amplifier
Leave the AC cord disconnected before making any signal or speaker connections. When making
connections to the amplifier, make sure there is no strain or tension on the input leads, speaker wires, or
AC cord that could cause them to pull loose.
Input Connections
Connect the output of your preamplifier or processor to the right (red) and left (white) channel RCA jacks
for stereo operation. For bridged mono operation, use only the right channel input jack and leave the left
channel jack disconnected.
Output Looping Connections
The right (red) and left (white) channel output looping RCA jacks provide you with a convenient way to
connect multiple amplifiers together from one source for multi-room/multi-zone applications. Once you
have connected the source to input jacks, you can connect these looping output jacks to the input of an
additional power amplifier without having to use separate "Y" connectors.
Speaker Connections
You may connect solid or stranded wire up to AWG 12, 1/4" spade lugs, single or dual banana plugs to
the five-way binding posts of your power amplifier. If you use bare wire without terminals, make sure
you remove only enough insulation so the wire fits through the hole that runs sideways through the
terminal’s binding post. Before inserting the wire, twist all its strands tightly to prevent strays that could
cause a short circuit. (You may want to "tin" the stripped wire with solder to prevent it from fraying and
oxidizing.)
Polarity
It is important to observe correct polarity. When you connect speakers to your amplifier, you will notice
that one side the two conductor speaker wire will have some sort of mark: either printing, a raised ridge on
the insulation or a different color of conductor. This lets you know which wire is connected to the positive
and which to the negative speaker terminals so you can do exactly the same at the power amplifier binding
posts. Polarity is marked separately on the rear panel for both stereo and bridged connections.
Minimum Impedance Precautions
Connect loudspeakers with a 4 Ω or 8 Ω nominal impedance for normal operation. Your amplifier is
capable of driving speakers with occasional impedance dips below 2 Ω . However, sustained high power
operation into loads of less than 4 Ω may cause overheating and is therefore not recommended.
Bridged Mono Operation
For bridged operation, we recommend an 8
Ω
minimum mono load. This restriction results from the
mathematics of the bridging circuitry. In the bridged mono mode each channel of the amplifier functions
for only the positive or negative half of the musical waveform. As a result, each channel “sees” only half
of the speaker’s impedance. Use of an 8
Ω
speaker means that the load for each channel is 4
Ω
. For a 4
Ω
speaker, the impedance would be only 2
Ω
per channel.