Has anyone done this?

[cwall99]

So I'm sitting here thinking about my AVR, a Pioneer Elite VSX-82TXS. And I'm thinking about those seven pre-outs on the back. If I read my manual correctly, it sounds like if I wanted to (and could afford it and could get my wife's permission to do it - these are listed in order of ease, getting progressively more difficult), I could buy some external amps (say some Emotivas - the brand is irrelevant, I'm just thinking theoretically here) and hook them up to my receiver.

If I had speakers to attach to these external amps, I could be driving 14 speakers with the same program material. Six speakers across the front, two each in each of the surround and surround back locations.

I wouldn't, obviously, have 14 unique channels, rather I'd have two identical sets of seven.

Am I right in thinking this could be done?

Has anyone done this?

Can you still hear?

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

The first problem is that it’s generally not considered a good thing to put two speakers right up against each other. You’d most likely get comb filtering because it would be difficult to arrange them so that the sound from the additional speakers reached your ears at exactly the same time as the originals. Sure, by essentially doubling the amount of speakers in the room the acoustic output (SPL) would be greater, but that could just as easily be accomplished by turning up the volume.

Also, some receivers (Many? Most?) are internally configured so that when you plug into the pre outs, the internal amps are disabled.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[j_garcia]

Can it be done? Yes. Is it a good idea? No. Besides what Wayne mentioned, you won't really benefit from having the additional speakers if they aren't the same as the ones you currently have.

My receiver's internal amp outputs are not disabled when using the pre-outs. I tested this because the thought crossed my mind to try this. I don't have a reason to do this, but tested it simply out of curiousity.

 

[highfigh]

It depends on the speakers and how the drivers are arranged. If they're two or three way with woofer on the bottom and tweeter on top, inverting the top cabinet will create a D'Appolito arrangement and if you have separate level control for each speaker, it can be interesting. If you have a really large room and a lot of speakers, you could create a line array by laying the speakers on their sides, with each driver aligned vertically. Line arrays are known for wide dispersion.

I rented a place with someone I worked with and we each had the same model of speakers and integrated amplifier, so I set it up with the sources connected to one of the amps, one pair of speakers on each amp and a cable from the record out on the amp with the sources to the Tape 1 input of the other amp. We had totally separate volume and tone control for each pair and that system kicked ***! The amps were Sony TA-4560, rated at 30W/ch (they spec'd out at 56 W/ch in all of the independent tests I ever read) and the speakers are Jamo J101 8" three way, using all Phillips drivers. It wasn't big but it really sounded full.

 

[Alex2507]

If it's anything like what my TV and rec'r sound like when they are both playing you're not going to like it. However the 'Presence' channels on some rec'rs is intriguing but reportedly it's not all that impressive. Nevertheless as soon as I get a chance I'm going to try it out.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Bad idea. I've tried dual center speakers, and that was not good due to comb filtering.

I can't imagine comb filtering on all 14 speakers!!!