? about connecting speakers in parallel (1 Viewer)

[Jason*H]

My reciever is a Onkyo tx sr600 On my to front channels I have two speakers setup on both channels the speakers are Onkyo not sure model #. The reason i have the 2 hooked up together is one pair produces better highs and one produces better mids and lows let me know what you think.


Also at what size driver does a surround speaker go from small to Large on a recievers speaker configuration

 

[Greg*go]

Jason,

Most people on this forum will tell you to keep your speaker setting to small on the receiver no matter how big your speakers are. The thought it that since you have a subwoofer to handle the bass, let it do its job. This way you can free up some head room on the receiver's amps.

Now, do you have a A/B setting on your receiver and is this how you have the 2 speakers per channel hooked up? If not, then I wouldn't suggest doing this. I believe the reason is you mess up the ohms by hooking up 2 speakers to one speaker output on the receiver, which greatly increases your risk of blowing out your receiver's amps. I've seen a couple friends have 3 speakers hooked up to one output on tabletop stereos, and I always cringe.

 

[Jason*H]

thanks greg

 

[John Garcia]

You will not damage the amps in the receiver by doing this. You run the risk of damaging the SPEAKERS. You are drawing quite a bit more current from the amp and when it runs out of current, it will "clip" the signal (distortion) which is the quickest way to damage your speakers.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Over time, with heat you might. Granted you're right, but it's not as if there is no extra strain on the reciever, there definitely is. You'll be warned if your reciever starts going into protect from time to time, which hints that you might be pretty much at the limits. I'd take care that you have plenty of ventilation, and that the speakers are relatively efficient and not of low impedance.

But, as to why anyone would want to wire different speakers for the mains is beyond me...

 

[Thomas Willard]

Placing speakers in parallel will reduce the input impedance by half. Two 8 ohm speakers will appear as a 4 ohm impedance to the amp. If the speakers are 8 ohms and the amp can handle a 4 ohm load, then you should be OK. Worse case would be the amp going into a protective shut down mode if current draw is too great.

 

[RickMo]

The mathematical forumula to determing the resistance the amp "sees" is:

R1 x R2 / R1 + R2 (where R=impedance or resistance in ohms)

If both speakers are the same value, then the resulting resistance is half. In general, the resulting resistance is always LESS than the smallest resistance speaker. So, an 8 ohm in parallel with a 4 ohm equals 2-1/3 ohms.

 

[Trevor V]

That formula looks confusing to me and I've never seen it before. Not to say that it doesn't work, but this is the formula I see most often when it comes to determining the resistance of speakers in Parallel:

1/Rp = 1/R1 + 1/R2...