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Two home theater systems. How to connect?

#1
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6/24/08 at 8:31am
  • Joined: June 2008
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My boss gave me the speakers from the Samsung HT-P1200 theater system for free yesterday. The only thing it didn't have was the subwoofer and the dvd player which is no big deal. So in all, I got 5 speakers (front left, front right, rear left, rear right, and center) for free. I already have a surround sound system (HTIB) by LG I bought 2 years ago (5.1). Now my main goal is to connect both of these systems together so I'd have a total of 10 speakers + 1 subwoofer playing together. Is this possible? If so, I'm assuming I'd need to get a new receiver? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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#2
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6/24/08 at 9:40am
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  • Location: Vancouver, BC
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Re: Two home theater systems. How to connect?

Hi Scott, welcome to HTF!

Even if you could do this, it would be ill advised.. the speakers won't be timbre matched, it would sound rather awful

That being said, I would listen to the two sets of speakers and choose which one you prefer. You'll be fairly limited in upgrading this Samsung HTIB or adding a receiver as the system uses proprietary connectors

Cheers
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#3
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6/24/08 at 10:27am
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Re: Two home theater systems. How to connect?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alon Goldberg
Hi Scott, welcome to HTF!

Even if you could do this, it would be ill advised.. the speakers won't be timbre matched, it would sound rather awful

That being said, I would listen to the two sets of speakers and choose which one you prefer. You'll be fairly limited in upgrading this Samsung HTIB or adding a receiver as the system uses proprietary connectors

Cheers

Thanks for the welcome and advice. Would a speaker selector work? I'm not sure exactly how they work ,but I understand you can hook up multiple sets of speakers to it which is connected to one receiver, but would I be able to play both sets of speakers at the same time?
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#4
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6/24/08 at 10:31am
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Re: Two home theater systems. How to connect?

Hi Scott, your system uses proprietary connectors, there's not much you can do.. this is one of the many limitations of owning HTIB system

Even so, if you were able to connect both sets of speakers it would sound rather awful as I mentioned above
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#5
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6/24/08 at 10:44am
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Re: Two home theater systems. How to connect?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alon Goldberg
Hi Scott, your system uses proprietary connectors, there's not much you can do.. this is one of the many limitations of owning HTIB system

Even so, if you were able to connect both sets of speakers it would sound rather awful as I mentioned above

Oh well thanks for the help..I really appreciate it. Hmmm..maybe my best bet is to just pick a receiver and have 2 separate sound systems. I use my systems primarily for music and occasionally for tv, but not often. If I do get another receiver, is there a way I can stream music from my laptop to both systems? I have the cord that I use to connect to my one system (head phone jack to red/white audio connectors). I'm not sure if a cable exists that would enable me to connect to two receivers?
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#6
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6/24/08 at 11:06am
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Re: Two home theater systems. How to connect?

Alon is correct. Home theaters are designed to have 5.1 or 7.1 timbre matched speakers (aside from some esoteric other schemes that are proprietary to certain company's prodcuts). It is almost never the case where "more is better" when it comes to speakers. One, they wouldn't be timbre matched (different tonal sounds coming from different speakers) and two, speakers are designed to be carefully placed and calibrated, the more you have the harder the calibration.

As was said, pick the best 5 speakers and use them. Using all of them is neither better nor more sound than using just 5.
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#7
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6/24/08 at 12:26pm
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Re: Two home theater systems. How to connect?

Quote:
Originally Posted by BP4Over
If I do get another receiver, is there a way I can stream music from my laptop to both systems? I have the cord that I use to connect to my one system (head phone jack to red/white audio connectors). I'm not sure if a cable exists that would enable me to connect to two receivers?
You could use a "Y" adapter to send the audio signal to two different system. Also, technically that is not "streaming". Your laptop is just being used as an audio source component. If you truely want to stream the audio, then you need something like the Logitech Duet or one of the hundreds of other networked media players. They will stream the audio from your laptop over your network and decode it for use by your receiver.

-Robert
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