Home Theater Forum  ›  Forums  ›  Home Theater  ›  Beginners and General Questions  ›  Using several impedance matching volume controls
All New PostsForum Nav:

Using several impedance matching volume controls

#1
Rating: 0
3/1/09 at 7:10am
  • Joined: February 2009
  • Post Count: 3
This is my first post in this forum...seems like there's a lot of useful information here!

My receiver is an Aiwa HT-NW300 with a single pair of stereo outputs.

I have a Monster MSS-4 speaker selector ( http://www.monstercable.com/lit/Spea...d_6_Manual.pdf ) that I currently only use to distribute 2 channels to 2 rooms in my house. I want to expand my system and put sound in 8 different rooms (1 pair of speakers in each). I know I can do this safely by putting an impedance matching volume control in each room and disregarding the speaker selector I'm using, but I'd like to continue using the speaker selector, if possible, to create & control 4 "zones" of output. By "zones" I just mean groups of speakers (then I can turn all the upstairs speakers off when I'm downstairs, etc.). My thinking is that I could divide the house into 4 zones, with each button on the speaker selector controlling a zone of 4 speakers. Each pair of speakers will be controlled by an impedance matching volume control in the room they're in.

The MSS-4 has a switch that allows me to turn of its impedance matching function, so I think I can shut that off and all the volume controls should take care of the load matching by themselves. Anyone disagree? Or should I leave it on? Not sure what that will do to the impedance level.

Any advice or warnings? I'm also wondering what the final load will be. If I use one pair of 8 ohm outputs from my receiver to drive 8 pairs of speakers on 8 impedance matching volume controls, will the final load be 8 ohms after all the matching?

One last thing...will the potential volume of each of the speaker pairs be cut down by doing things this way?

Thanks,
Aaron
Reply
#2
Rating: 0
3/1/09 at 8:54am
  • Joined: June 2000
  • Location: Colorado
  • Post Count: 7,831

Re: Using several impedance matching volume controls

I don't know what an impedance matching volume control is, but you sound like you are playing with trouble. I think it would be much easier and flexible, if a bit more expensive to set up some kind of wireless music server. there are many options.

If you insist on doing what you describe, I suspect the speaker selector with impedance matching function enabled would be required.
Reply
#3
Rating: 0
3/3/09 at 5:47am
  • Joined: February 2009
  • Post Count: 3

Re: Using several impedance matching volume controls

I'm just realizing that this won't work with the speaker selector between the receiver and the vol controls. The vol controls I've seen have jumpers used to specify how many of them you're using and what impedance level to match at.

Forgive the length of my last post. I tend to use 100 words when 10 will do.

So I guess my only question is how much the volume will be affected by using the single L+R pair from the receiver to drive 8 pairs of speakers on 8 impedance matching volume controls. Will the volume potential of each of the speaker pairs be much lower because the signal's being split so many times?

Thanks,
Aaron
Reply
All New PostsForum Nav:
  Back to Forum: Beginners and General Questions
  Return Home
Home Theater Forum  ›  Forums  ›  Home Theater  ›  Beginners and General Questions  ›  Using several impedance matching volume controls