Any Home Theater Experts out there?

[the other pc]

Re: Any Home Theater Experts out there?

OrangeCrush,

The situation I believe you’re referring to is connecting an amplifier’s speaker-level output to another’s line-level input, which is definitely a no-no and will fry electronics.

What Mister B has done is connect line-level outputs to line–level inputs, which is exactly what they’re meant for and works fine.



Mister B,

When you use a stereo receiver to power individual speakers in different locations you typically end up with each location having only one channel, either the right or the left depending on how you wired it.

Occasionally you come across a stereo receiver with a mono switch that sums the two input channels into one signal and feeds that mono signal into both amplifier channels. But those are rare these days. (It’s very common in commercial gear because commercial distributed sound systems, elevators, bus terminals, theme parks, etc are always mono.)

Running just one channel to a location won’t sound quite right with source material that has very different information left to right. This may or may not be a problem for you depending on your music.


pc.

[Mister B]

Re: Any Home Theater Experts out there?

Mister B,

When you use a stereo receiver to power individual speakers in different locations you typically end up with each location having only one channel, either the right or the left depending on how you wired it.

Occasionally you come across a stereo receiver with a mono switch that sums the two input channels into one signal and feeds that mono signal into both amplifier channels. But those are rare these days. (It’s very common in commercial gear because commercial distributed sound systems, elevators, bus terminals, theme parks, etc are always mono.)

Running just one channel to a location won’t sound quite right with source material that has very different information left to right. This may or may not be a problem for you depending on your music.


pc.

Yea, I wondered what the effect would be by having only one channel going to individual speaker locations. At this point it seems to sound fine for what I want though. It's an older house and the speakers are older also. I don't know exactly what type of speakers they are, but the previous owners have all 3 individual speakers spliced together and running through one speaker wire (+ & -) which I have connected to the L (+ & -) speaker output on the back of my receiver. I don't know if that is good or bad, but that is how I have it at this point and it seems to sound ok. Sometime down the road I will probably upgrade those 3 individual ceiling speakers to single stereo input ceiling speakers that would play both the left and right channels through one speaker. I would also run individual wires from each speaker location back to the receiver instead of the single wire that they have now.

Thanks,
Brian

[Megafast13]

Re: Any Home Theater Experts out there?

As of now that may work, but I do not recommend you doing that. You need a new receiver. You can get a pure audio only receiver for about 100 dollars. If you want it connected to your TV than 150. They are fairly cheap these days!

https://www.amazon.com

Has a wide selection of Receivers.

As far as cables go:

https://www.monoprice.com

Has the best selection of all cables and VERY cheap prices.

You can get huges cables that you seem to want to.

[the other pc]

Re: Any Home Theater Experts out there?

... but the previous owners have all 3 individual speakers spliced together and running through one speaker wire (+ & -) which I have connected to the L (+ & -) speaker output on the back of my receiver....

That was going to be my next question.

... I don't know if that is good or bad...

Depends on the impedance of each speaker and how they're wired.

More likely than not they're wired one of three ways; in parallel, in series or in parallel with impedance matching transformers.

Parallel wiring would be a bad idea because is puts a heavy strain on the amp, effectively tripling the load. That could lead to overheating in the amp, blown fuses or possibly blown output devices.

Series wiring would be safe for the amp. each speaker would only get a third of the signal so you'd have to turn the volume up higher. And the total volume you'd be able to get would be less. In series, if one speaker goes out they all do (like Christmas tree lights).

Parallel with transformers is how commercial distributed systems are usually wired. When a speaker fails in a parallel wired system all the rest keep working. By using correctly specified and wired transformers the total load on the amp is kept within its intended operating range. Unless your system was installed by a commercial contractor it's unlikely that it was done this way. The cost and complexity is beyond the scope of most homeowners or residential contractors.

...Sometime down the road I will probably upgrade those 3 individual ceiling speakers to single stereo input ceiling speakers that would play both the left and right channels through one speaker. I would also run individual wires from each speaker location back to the receiver instead of the single wire that they have now....

Home running the wires from each speaker will be a very nice improvement. That will allow you to turn the sound in each room on/off or change volume independently.

I wouldn't bother with "stereo input" speakers. They're a total waste. Yeah, they're easy to wire. But why pay for a speaker that's twice as complicated and run twice as much cable just to have the sound come out of one speaker? It's easier and cheaper to combine the signals to mono at the amplifier's input.


pc.

[Mister B]

Re: Any Home Theater Experts out there?

Thanks PC,

I'm pretty sure they are wired in parrallel. I have not been up in the attic to look, but one speaker did go out on me one time (probably a loose connection) and when I touched the speaker and moved it a little, it came back on. While that one speaker was out, the rest of the speakers continued to work. I will be changing that with 3 independant wires back to the receiver.

How do I combine the signals to mono at the amp?

Brian

[the other pc]

Re: Any Home Theater Experts out there?

You could get a small, simple mixer to combine the two channels. Radio Shack has a cheap one that might do the the job. Here's another possibility from a vendor I use a lot, and another.

A little ebay'ing might turn up an old stereo piece of some sort with a stereo/mono switch.

If you know somebody's who's electronically inclined you could throw together a very simple non-adjustable mixing circuit to insert before the amp. Something like this should work with most solid-state electronics:



pc.