Wiring additional rooms for sound (1 Viewer)

Not sure if I'm posting in the proper area. If not, feel free to move it where it belongs!

Here's what I'm wanting to do. I've got a home theater area already wired and functional located in one half of my basement. Receiver is Sony STR-DE885. The other half of my basement is pre-wired for speakers, I just need a little help getting them functioning properly.

Here's a rendering of my basement, with new speaker locations marked:



Four speakers total. Not concerned with fronts/rears, just want two wired up as LEFT and two as RIGHT as I'll only be pumping music into that room.

I also purchased a multi-room speaker selector:




Would like to have the four speakers in the room hooked up together as "one room selection". Taking ohms and impedance into account, and assuming 8ohm speakers will be used, what would be the best way to wire up these speakers? Series or parallel? Not quite sure what I'm doing here, and don't want to fry my receiver.

Also, where on my receiver do I connect the multi-room selector? The "B" set of posts? Then just switch to A/B on the receiver when I want to manually select other rooms? Sorry for all the questions, just kind of new at doing multi-room off one receiver.

If I'm reading the specs correctly on your amp STR-DE885, it doesn't have a speaker B, so you will have to bring your Front Left and Right into your speaker selector. Then Output 1 or A to your surround room front speakers. Then 2 and 3 or B and C for the other two pair of speakers that are located in the other room. You will have to change the surround to stereo for full Left/right when using the other room and change back to surround when just using the home theater room.

No, I've definitely got B speaker-set. A/B button is right on the front of the receiver. What I don't have is a "2nd Room" output. I think that was exclusive to the STR-DE985 (a step up from my receiver).

Ok then just hook the b speakers to the input on your switch and you will use the a and b out of the speaker switch to the other 2 pair in the other room. you won't use the output from c and d. Still when running the other room change your surround to "stereo" so you get all information to the left and right channels and switch back to surround when just using the surround rooom. It would be nice to have a 2 zone receiver instead of the one that you currently have, then you could listen to something different than the other room, ie you could be watching a DVD movie in the surround room and listen to Cable/Sat music in the other room, but that would require a different amp.

Ok, I've got everything wired up and working. Thanks for all the info!

Just one question. Why is the volume in my second room so much lower than in my main room? When watching tv, my volume is normally set anywhere from 30-40. When I switch over to my second room, I've got to crank it up over 50 to hear it well. Any ideas why the difference in volume?

How have you wired your 2 left/2 right speakers in the new room from your switch?

I wired them in series, 2 for the left channel, and 2 for the right channel. They are 8ohm speakers. My receiver can handle a min. load of 8ohms, so I had to go series instead of parallel. Or do you think I could get away with parallel wiring? It's my understanding that most receivers can handle a 4ohm load as long as you aren't cranking the volume for hours on end.

If you have the speaker selector why did you wire them in Series? Are you not using your speaker selector?

Yes, I'm using the selector. It is a four-room selector, with two speakers per room. I've wired my speakers in series because I wanted to connect four speakers up to one room selection. I could have wired two speakers to one room selection, and the other two to another room selection, but I've got three other rooms in the house that I want to wire up to the selector.

Was going over this with a friend and drew up a diagram of how I've got everything now:

I'll try switching over to parallel wiring and see if my receiver heats up at all.

I'm not familiar with that brand of speaker selector, but isn't it impedance matched so that it cannot opverload the amplifier?

No idea! That's why I came here for help with all this!

So you're saying I can go with parallel wiring and not worry about overloading my amp?

Also, I am controlling four speakers with the one volume control, but the control is really only built for controlling two speakers (left and right).

Is the Volume Control also Labeled as Impedance Matching? If you are using the Selector then a Non-Impedance Volume control should be used. You will get a lower volume if it's wired the way you have it in you Series picture. You have 16 ohms resistance instead of 8. Expect less Volume.

Here's the product page for the switch and the volume control:

http://www.hometechaudio.com/pages/electr.asp

Unfortunately, it doesn't give too many details about the products themselves and whether they are impedance-matching. I'll have to check the packaging when I get home.