Receiver damage from wet speakers? (1 Viewer)

[Adam_Smith]

I was thinking about running a cable from the preamp out on my Sony DB1070 receiver to a pair of cheap self powered speakers which I would have hanging on the wall of the bathroom so people could listen to music in the shower. If moisture in the room somehow got into the speakers and caused them to short or something could this in anyh way damage my receiver. I wouldn't care about the speakers, only my receiver and other HT components. They would be connect via standard headphone type extension cable with an RCA to stereo mini cord connected the preamp out which is RCA.

 

[Saurav]

I think a short across the speaker terminals would be rough on a receiver. I would guess that most receivers would probably have protection circuitry to handle this, but I would still be uncomfortable.

 

[chung]

I was thinking about running a cable from the preamp out on my Sony DB1070 receiver to a pair of cheap self powered speakers which I would have hanging on the wall of the bathroom so people could listen to music in the shower. If moisture in the room somehow got into the speakers and caused them to short or something could this in anyh way damage my receiver. I wouldn't care about the speakers, only my receiver and other HT components. They would be connect via standard headphone type extension cable with an RCA to stereo mini cord connected the preamp out which is RCA.

If the shorts occur at the inputs of the self-powered speakers, the Sony stereo receiver will not be damaged. However, the sound going to the main amps in the receiver may sound distorted. That depends on how well buffered the preamp outputs are from the main amps' inputs. The preamp outputs typcially have output impedances in the range of 100 ohms, so if the preamp outputs were shorted, those outputs effectively are driving 100 ohms or so, and probably will cause some distortion to the signal that goes to the main amps in the receiver.

 

[Adam_Smith]

If this were to happen would removing the damaged speakers solve this problem or would my amp be permanently damaged?

 

[chung]

Removing the preamp output connections will solve the problem. The short may be in the cables, too.

 

[Saurav]

Hmmm... preamp output. Never mind, I missed that, I thought you'd be using your receiver's amps. I would still be leery of doing that though, but I'm anal like that