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Any recommendations for the best way to run multiple sets of speakers at once? I'd like to play around with a "wall of sound" of my vintage speakers and am wondering the best way to go about this to prevent damage to speakers or amps/receivers.Option A: Buy a speaker selector unit that accepts several sets of speakers and allows one or more pair to be played at a time. Monster has a unit that accepts six pairs and claims that all can be run at once safely. Any opinions? Any other selector units recommended?
Option B: Run my source (i.e. turntable or cd player) into Amp A, go tape out from Amp A to tape in Amp B, go tape out from Amp B to tape in Amp C, etc. Run one pair of speakers from each amp. Turn 'em all on at once but I'm afraid this might lead to (in the words of Journey) "when the lights go down in the city."
Anyone else have any experience running a wall of sound? I'm serious about this. (Unfortunately, Phil Spector is preoccupied at the moment.)
Follow Ups:
To get a distribution amp to run from the "pre-out" jacks of your preamp or integrated amp, and enough power amps to properly power however many speakers you have. It'll be more expensive that way, but it's the right way to do it.Otherwise, option B is the 2nd best way to go. But, if you're using the tape outs to run the signal to the other amps, you won't have a unified volume control. You'll have to adjust the volume on each amp, and the tonal balance will differ from one setting to the next, because of the volume differences of each amp.
I've messed with multiple speakers before and have come to the conclusion that two good speakers, properly set up give much better results, especially when it comes to stereo imaging.
Option B is much better than A as those multi-speaker switches add resistors in series and that will noticeably affect the sound. The downside is that the level control on amp 1 will not affect the volume on the other two.Option C is to find a receiver (call it #1) with pre outs and main in and run from the pre out jacks to the tape inputs of the next amp, plus the main amp on receiver #1, using a Y splitter. Then you can do a tape out from amp 2 to amp 3. In this scheme all the volume controls work, so you can balance the levels on all the speakers and the volume control on amp #1 controls the volume of all three. Trick is, you need a preamp with a really low output impedance to drive all three pieces. A recent NAD integrated amp, like my C320BEE can do it easily as it has a pre out with 100 ohms impedance. You could also find a separate preamp like an Adcom or NAD with low output impedance and drive all three receivers with that.
OPt for B, it works for me.
It's really the easiest way "To Play Some Music"(from Journey's 1st album) via that wall-o'-sound which you seek, & all you need is one amp or receiver. As long as that amp isn't bridged, wherein the positive-n-negative output switches back-n-forth. Carver amps utilized such a topology, methinketh, which is why one has never made its' way into da audio arsenal.
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