I happened to spot this odd item in the Talkbass Classifieds. I know a couple folks here have Walter Woods amps... this apparently is made to bridge the stereo output. 

https://www.talkbass.com/classifieds/new-bayou-cables-y-cable-for-bridging-walter-woods-stereo-electracoustic.1686522/

Butch at Bayou Cables is mostly retired from making custom cables, but his wares are famously well-made. 

I think Walter's true stereo amps are even more rare than his regular 2-channel-pre / mono-power-amp heads.  Both of mine are the latter...

Jimmy J

Bought this, hoping it will enable me to plug my Series bass into each channel (one pickup per channel) of my Walter Woods amp, then combine the outputs for a single mono out.  

rv, what WW model do you have?  Is there not a "stereo / mono" switch on the front panel?  And there are two separate speaker output channels? 

I need to read up on his fully-stereo heads. I can hardly believe he has squeezed another power amp channel into that package. Walter is amazing. 

Jimmy J

Jimmy,

I used to have the stereo MI-100, but 100 watts was not enough power, so I sold it and I now have an Electracoustic amber light 450-650 watts.  

Rob

OK cool!  Instead of a mono/stereo switch you have a BRG/STR switch.  How great is that?  That cable should be just the ticket.  Nice catch!

Jimmy J

Awesome. I was hoping one of you guys could use that thing.  😎

Quote from: JimmyJ on August 29, 2026, 09:54:38 PMOK cool!  Instead of a mono/stereo switch you have a BRG/STR switch.  How great is that?  That cable should be just the ticket.  Nice catch!

Jimmy J

Can you explain how the BRG/STR switch works, its function? Thanks!


And thanks for posting EofH

Isn't that the Bridge/Stereo function? Bridged, I think they make something like 1200 watts at 4 Ohms.

Great, thank you! 😊 

Although I don't have the manual that would be my guess as well. "BRG" meaning "Bridge" mode where the two channels of the power amp are working in tandem. Like one channel does the upper 1/2 of the waveform while the 2nd channel does the lower 1/2. Thus your power output is doubled!

It's sort of a distant cousin of our +/- Series power supply. 

So this special SPEAKER cable is wired so what is normally the hot pin of output 1 becomes "speaker +" and the hot pin of output 2 becomes "speaker -", or the other way around, I don't know.

The result should be exactly what you want - stereo preamps into a high-wattage mono power amp.

When dealing with that kind of power you definitely need a reliable cable!

Excuse me if I've "over-explained" things you already know.   Let us know how it works out.

Jimmy J

Thanks very much for the explanation, Jimmy!  I was originally just looking to combine the two separately mixed channels to a mono output, which I guess I can do with the STR (stereo) switch.  But having the extra power with two channel mixing with the switch set at BRG is really nice to have as well.  Thanks! 😊

Quote from: rv_bass on Yesterday at 01:12:34 PMThanks very much for the explanation, Jimmy!  I was originally just looking to combine the two separately mixed channels to a mono output, which I guess I can do with the STR (stereo) switch.  But having the extra power with two channel mixing with the switch set at BRG is really nice to have as well.  Thanks! 😊

Let me try to be even clearer on this if I can...  A-hem 

In "STR" or stereo mode, whatever signal you send into the channel #1 input will be amplified and ONLY come out of the #1 speaker output.  Same for channel #2.  Your WW amp is "true stereo" in that it has two separate preamp and power amp channels in one chassis.

Now if you only want to run a single speaker cabinet but wish to retain the separate tone and volume controls of both channels, you can't just connect the two speaker outputs together into one speaker.  And that's not what this cable does!  You can never simply "combine" the outputs of two amps because they would react to each other and cause big problems.  (On a small-signal scale this is why we need two resistors to sum our Series channels to mono.  But at speaker level it's even more problematic.)

The special cable you're getting is ONLY designed be used in "BRG" or Bridge mode.  When you switch to that mode the preamp channels 1&2 will be summed and sent into what is now a single channel of power amp.

So when you say "I was originally just looking to combine the two separately mixed channels to a mono output..." you are talking about BRG mode and not STR mode.

A Series with the Treble and Bass outputs into separate channels of your amp - and then in "STR" mode driving two separate speaker cabinets - would make a lovely big sound!  That's the neck pickup through one cabinet and the bridge pickup through another and is the cleanest and biggest tone you'll ever hear.  

The next best thing is T&B signals into the separate channels - then in "BRG" mode driving a single speaker cabinet.  That way you'd still have separate tone and volume controls for each pickup but a more powerful mono output to the speaker cabinet.

Again, I apologize if I'm "man-splaining" here.   

Jimmy J

PS: Don't be throwing that switch back and forth with the volume up!  And always be careful when switching speaker cables because you never want to short the output of any amp, even for an instant.

I loved the extra explanation.

If you ran two cabinets with it in stereo, would you risk any phase issues?

Jimmy,

Thanks very much for the additional information, very helpful as I consider what to do going forward with this.  I will try the cable in bridged mode at low volume to start and see how it goes.  Thanks!  

-Rob