Help with Speaker Selector connection to Receiver

[Gayle]

I have a JVC RX-309TN Digital Synthesizer Receiver and up to now have had 3 pairs of speakers hooked up to it and all were working fine. It has terminals for 2 pairs of speakers but I doubled up on one to have 3 pairs. I have had for quite a long time a Speaker Selector from Radio Shack I never got around to trying which selects which pair to have on (no volume control, it's on the receiver). There are sets of terminals for each pair of speakers and one set marked amp input. I can't determine what I can use to connect them. Can I connect one a wire to a set of terminals on the receiver to the amp terminals on the Selector and have it work that way? What does everyone think?
Thanks!

 

[Adam]

Hi, Gayle, and welcome to the forum!

Although probably not the same unit that you have, here is a link to a user's manual from Radio Shack for their 4-pair speaker selector (it's a PDF file). It discusses how to connect the receiver and the speakers.

If that's unclear, or if you have any other questions, just let us know.

Adam

 

[Gayle]

Thank You Adam Plus more Info

Adam, Thank you for the link. Silly me, could have Googled it! However, my set up still doesn't work. It's either the splicing of wires I had to do to lengthen some of them them or I have something plugged in incorrectly. Here's a little more info:

I have 3 different sets of speakers and they all fall in the 8-16 impedance req'd for the receiver.

I have a new 42" 1080p AOC Envision LCD HDTV L42H861 connected to coaxial cable, JVC Receiver (as mentioned before), Bose 123, Pioneer PDM423 Multi-Play CD Player and an Admiral VHS 4-Head Video Cassette Recorder Mod. 20419. I want to listen to the radio and CD's via the receiver and the speakers, also the TV audio and the DVD player thru the same.

I had it all working before I moved them to the new entertainment center I got for the new TV. I labeled all the wires, drew a diagram where they all went and then got the "bright" idea to use the Speaker Selector I never got around to using. I spent last night and all today buying more wire, stripping wires, splicing them for more length and after reading the link you sent, I connected 1 speaker to a terminal on the receiver then to a amp/recvr terminal on the spkr slctr. Nothing! So I added the other speaker in the pair but again, nada. Other than going back to the old set up sans selector, I don't know what to do.

Any ideas or suggestions? Anyone? Thanks again!!!

 

[Adam]

Hi, Gayle.

I'd like to check if possibly the speaker selector has nothing to do with it. You mention that you did two things at the same time: (a) moved your equipment and (b) added in the speaker selector. It's possible that something happened during the move that is causing your speakers to not work.

So, here's my question - have you tried hooking up any of the speakers directly to the receiver since you moved everything? If so, did they work? If not, then there's some things to try. For example, make sure that the receiver isn't on mute and doesn't have the speakers set to off.

Would you please let us know once/if those have been ruled out? My approach is to systematically eliminate the possible causes, starting with the more obvious (at least to me) causes and the ones that are easiest to fix. It's entirely possible that the speaker selector just doesn't work, but let's look at a few things first.

 

[Gayle]

Adam, It worked!!!

Hi Adam, I did as you recommended, bypassing the spkr slctr and the speaker worked! I went back to the old system and have given up on trying to switch a set on/off. The receiver is set up for 2 speakers (8 terminals) but I have doubled up on each terminal so I can have 3 sets (6 speakers). I've had it that way for 5 years and nothing bad has happened so I guess that's OK to do. But for the future, any suggestions on what I can do to select which set(s) I want on? Thanks for all your help!

 

[Adam]

You're very welcome, and I'm glad that you got it working again! Too bad that selector wasn't working, though. One thing that popped into my mind was that the front buttons on the selector might not have been pushed in completely. Without knowing which model you have, I don't know if it would work with more than one button pushed in or not. There would certainly need to be at least one button pushed in, though, I'm thinking - and it would have to be the button corresponding to the speaker terminals that you were connected to on the back. You probably already went through all of that, but maybe not, so I'm mentioning it.

EDIT: Thanks for the update, by the way! It's always nice to hear back and find out how things went.

 

[Midcow2]

Hi Adam, I did as you recommended, bypassing the spkr slctr and the speaker worked! I went back to the old system and have given up on trying to switch a set on/off. The receiver is set up for 2 speakers (8 terminals) but I have doubled up on each terminal so I can have 3 sets (6 speakers). I've had it that way for 5 years and nothing bad has happened so I guess that's OK to do. But for the future, any suggestions on what I can do to select which set(s) I want on? Thanks for all your help!

Hey Gayle, wellcome to the Audioholics forum!. Adam gives great advice!

You might want to consider a replacement for your current speaker selector switch. Here is one example: http://www.jr.com/sima/pe/SMA_SSWL4EX/ In addtion, to speaker selection, you would also have volume control.

What exact type and model of speaker selector switch do you have now ? Maybe we can further diagnose your current problem

Good Luck!