Question: Connecting 4 surrounds to 2 outs (1 Viewer)

[JustinG]

Quick question:

I have a Kenwood VR-3080. It's about 3 years old. 100Wx5 for surround. DD and DTS yadda yadda.

Currently, I've got it set up as 5.1. In my new house it's wired for 7.1.

My question now. Is it possible to run 2 pair of speakers off the rear surround channels? I'm afraid this will drop them to a 4 ohm load and might damage either the amp or the speakers. I'm currently running a pair of Klipsch quintets in the back. I'd add another pair of quintets for 4 surrounds. Of course, the LS's would play the same sound, and the RS's play the same.

Here's the specs page:
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/product/pr...?productId=391

Just noticed it's 100Wx5 in 6 Ohm. Doesn't say anything for 8 or 4 ohms.

The nomimal impedance for the quintets is 8 Ohms. Does that mean running at 4 ohms or even 6, would fry them?

Just looking for a cheap way to do a half-assed 7.1 till I get a new receiver.

Too bad I don't have room to put an old 2 channel amp in my cabinet that I could bridge off.

 

[Andrew S-]

running at a higher impendance is fine. the amp just wont put out the same power. running lower will be bad for your amp.

 

[Andrew Pierce]

If your speakers are 8 ohms running them in parallel gives you 4 ohms, which may or may not be safe for your amp, and running them in series gives you 16 ohms which is most definatly safe for your amp. If your speakers are 6 or 4 ohms, you should absolutely not connect them in parallel.

Parallel means that you connect the positive from each speaker to the positive terminal and both negatives to the negative terminal.

Series means you connect one positive to the positive terminal, the negative from that speaker to the positive on the next one, and the negative from the second speaker to the negative terminal on the receiver.

 

[Karl_C]

isn't this the case when you bi-wire? Im using using Wharf Diamonds and the four speaker wires from the speaker (1 speaker) are connected to the two inputs on the receiver, i.e. red input has two wires and black input the same. Is there any danger? I'm assuming that this is alright because I'm using the same speaker and not two speakers conncted to the two inputs for one channel.

 

[Andrew Pierce]

When you biwire you're running the woofer and tweeter in parallel, but across different frequency ranges -- so no, not really. The impedence halving refers to the fact that with 2 speakers in parallel you're pushing x ammount of current down 2 equivalent paths instead of 1. It draws more heavily on your amps power reserves. In a biwire system the 2 forks are only 2 parts of the same 'path', just some parts of the signal go down one part or the other. This is true of a standard monowired speaker with an internal crossover as well, it's just that in that case it takes place inside the speaker instead of at your receiver terminals.

 

[JustinG]

So, in other words, this is a bad idea. I figured as much.

BTW, theres no way for me to run them in series. Everythign is pre-wired in wall and it would take a lot of effort (and sheetrock destruction) to do this.

Thanks for the input.