Two Way In-Ceiling Speaker Question (1 Viewer)

[HuskerFan24]

I recently purchased 4 JBL SP6CSII (JBL Home Audio) in-ceiling speakers for a new home I am building. My question is they have two connections for each speaker, but I would like to use one speaker for a single channel and utilize both speakers. Is it possible to wire both speaker connections to a single connection on the receiver? If so, do I just run two wires to each speaker location or what is the best solution for this?

 

[gene c]

I'm perplexed that the owners manual doesn't explain how to do this (I looked) . But the best way to wire two speakers to a single channel is in series. Hook a wire from the + of the receiver to the + of speaker #1, hook a wire from the - of the receiver to the - of speaker #2 and then run a single jumper wire from the - of speaker #1 to the + of speaker #2. This changes the impendence of to 8 ohm speakers to one 16 ohm speaker. But I've never done this with a speaker that has two tweeters, two voice coils and two seperate connections so please be careful.

Running two separate wires from the receiver to each speaker, or wiring them in parallel, changes two 8 ohms to one 4 ohm which is probably below your receivers tolerance.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Can you return or exchange the speakers? You should have gotten conventional single tweeter speakers for your use. The speakers you got have two tweeters and two voice coils on the woofers and are specifically designed to project a stereo audio signal from a single source.

If you are stuck with these speakers, you will have to hook the two channels in series or parallel, here is a link describing how to do this: Series Parallel Speaker Impedance

 

[HuskerFan24]

I was also surprised by the lack of information in the manual. I do have a new question though stemming from the two responses. Since there are two tweeters and a single woofer, will setting the speakers up as explained, is there any side effects to this?

On a side note, I purchased these online and not likely possible to return them.

 

[Philip Hamm]

No "side effects" to speak of. Just make sure your amps can handle the ohm load.

 

[HuskerFan24]

I have the Harman Kardon AVR 445 (specs: harman/kardon) How can I tell if this has the ability to handle the ohm load?

 

[HuskerFan24]

Bump

 

[gene c]

Browsing the 445's manual, and my 435's, and it looks like it only handles an 8 ohm load. If the ohms drop too low then I'm assuming that the receiver would go into self-protect mode and shut off.

If you really want to try this, I would use the "series" wiring method I mentioned in my first post and the very, very first diagram in Philip's link. Good luck

.

 

[Philip Hamm]

The 16 ohm load may mean that you have to crank the hell out of the amp to get loud sound. You really would do better to cut your losses and get the right speakers.