What are the A/B speaker terminals? (1 Viewer)

[Babek]

I was wondering what the A/B speaker terminals are on the back of a receiver I wish to purchase. They are only for the front R/L. What exactly do they do ?

 

[Babek]

anyone care to reply?

 

[Jagan Seshadri]

Some people run a separate pair of speakers in another room. This is speaker pair 'B'.

Or, sometimes people have separate speaker brands for home theater (i.e. speaker set 'A') and for traditional 2-channel playback (i.e. speaker set 'B').

-JNS

 

[Richard Cook]

Is there any reason why the A/B terminals can't be ru together, for Bi-wiring, or would I lose power across the front soundstage.

I've got a Denon AVR2802

Thanks

 

[Jagan Seshadri]

I am not familiar with the 2802, but if you are bi-wiring, the power consumed by a typical 2-way speaker would now be split into the power going to the woofer via 'A' and the power going to the tweeter via 'B' (or vice-versa). You'd not be adding any extra load to the system, so I don't think you'd lose power across the front soundstage. The power would just be provided along different electrical paths.

-JNS

 

[Richard Cook]

Thanks Jagan

I will give it a go. The reason I need to do this is that the cable I use, Cabletalk, Talk 3.1, is too thick to combine on the one output, and here in Europe we don't get the luxury of 4mm sockets! I just needed further clarification before I went ahead

 

[Ian_A]

I read that using your A&B speakers for biamping does not give you any advantage. As the same internal amps are being used to drive both A&B. It would not increase your performance at all. I have attached a link there may have been some FAQ's on there site that talked about the same item.
http://www.audioholics.com/index.php

 

[Jagan Seshadri]

Hold on a second, Richard.

I want to make sure what you mean before agreeing to it! (Don't want you to damage your A/V kit).

You're not connecting the wires from terminals A and terminals B together are you?

i.e. A----|
..........|-----Speakers
.....B----|
That's not what I meant. Don't do that!

I meant
A---------->Woofer
B---------->Tweeter

-JNS

 

[RobCar]

Personally, I wouldn't buy a receiver that didn't have A and B capability (I might be wrong, but some Denons I looked at didn't appear to have Bs). I use the Bs to play music in a different room, which as far as I can tell is a whole lot easier than the whole "zone 2" thing. Zone 2 seems to require a separate amp.