How to hook up center speaker to a receiver with two center outputs.

[jlindsey86]

As of right now I have an old sony pro-logic receiver, but hey I'm in college. Any way I got some extra speakers on the cheap and was ready to hook them up when I noticed that my receiver has two speaker connections for two center speakers. When I hooked up one of the speakers I got no output, I had to hook up two speakers to get dialogue, if I do that though then I will be missing a surround. Is it possible to run both speaker outputs to one speaker with out damage? I dont know if this will work but I dont want to damage anything.

 

[jcPanny]

Humm, sounds like your receiver is running both center speakers in series off of a single amp.
Post the model of the receiver and others will reply with specific directions.

 

[jlindsey86]

It is a sony str-d1011s from around 1994 or so, maybe a little earlier.

 

[jlindsey86]

anyone? I'm going home for the weekend so I guess I will just run both outputs to the speaker and see what happens.

 

[trevorgray]

I had an old Sony 1000 series receiver pretty close to what you are describing (the last two numbers changed depending on the model year). Initially, I thought my center channel was broken until I stuck another speaker wire into the other side of the center channel (my friend gave it to me sans the manual). I think that back in the olden days or yore, that the center channel speakers weren't good enough and they used to get overpowered by the fronts and the rears, so they allowed a listener to hook up two fronts (but that may be folklore as well).

I ended up making sure that I had two sets of speaker wires going into the back of my receiver with one pair going to my center channel. It ran that way for years until I upgraded to my 2500 so that I could have DTS and Dolby Digital. Other than that, it was an awesome receiver.

I know this may sound strange to everybody out there, but the pair of wires that I didn't run to a speaker I think that I had to tape them together. I ended up running 2 fronts, 2 rears, 1 center with an empty wire coming out of the other center connection.

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

 

[rschleicher]

Given that it is not 100% clear how the two sets of center channel speaker jacks are wired internally, I think you want to be a bit cautious in what you try doing.

In particular, I'd be reluctant to short two of the jacks together before I really figured out how things were connected inside the receiver. If you had a multimeter it would obviously help.

Alternatively, I'd check Sony's web site(s) to see if they have an archive online of old product manuals. I think it is likely that the manual describes what to do with just one speaker - whether it is to hook the wires to the + of one pair of jacks, and the - of the other pair of jacks, or if it is something like the previous poster said, where you need to short the unused set to "complete the circuit". You'd hate to fry the center channel amplifier by shorting its outputs inadvertantly.

 

[trevorgray]

I did have a manual for the STR-D1011. It says to use the + from one side and the - from the other.

I hope this helps.