n00b needs amp for 6 speaker system

P

phlite

Audiophyte
Hi, please don't laugh! I need your advice on an amp, most likely the ceiling is 600 dollars.

I have 6 total speakers that are scattered around my house. Two in the living room ( Infinity Reference 2000.4, 8ohm), two in the kitchen ( Bose 201 Series II, 8ohm .... laugh), and two outside ( KLH, who knows the model, just outdoor speaks) . I need a new amp, currently I'm using a no-named ghetto amp from walmart, like 60 dollars, you know the one you get in college.

What I need out of this amp is:

- possibility to turn on and off the outside speakers, with A / B speaker button, so I don't drive the neighbors crazy all the time
- drive the speakers sufficiently
- hook up my xbox to and use xbox media center, etc ...
- possibility for more speakers down the line, maybe a total of 8?
- possibility in the future to use as home theatre receiver for dolby 7.1 someday

As you can see, at the moment my needs for the amp are for listening to music throughout my house at reasonable volumes. For entertaining, kicking back outside in the yard bbq'n, or eating dinner in the kitchen. Some day, possibly get a home theatre system goin....

Thanks so much for your advice!!! :)
 
jcPanny

jcPanny

Audioholic Ninja
Amp for speakers

The link you included is a decent receiver. Keep in mind that the A and B speaker connections on a receiver a designed to be used as A OR B, not A AND B. Also note that most receivers don't come close to their power spec with all channels driven.

If an amp is what you really need, check out the Behringer A500 for $180 shipped. It will deliver over 200 Watts into 4 ohms. Use this in conjunction with impedence matching volume controls ($30 each) in each room so you can independently control the volume level. The volume cotrols effectively divide the power between the available speakers you can have an 8 ohm impedence at the amp with 40-50 Watts deliverd to each of 4 pairs of speakers.
 
R

Reorx

Full Audioholic
jcPanny said:
The link you included is a decent receiver. Keep in mind that the A and B speaker connections on a receiver a designed to be used as A OR B, not A AND B.
This depends on the receiver. I've seen a number of receivers that are A OR B, and I've seen A AND B. My Yamaha can do both.
 
jcPanny

jcPanny

Audioholic Ninja
Yamaha A AND B

I have a newer version of the same receiver, Yamaha HTR-5860. My point is that the A and B speaker terminals share an amplifier, so running A AND B will cause the amp to receiver half the impedence. If you read the fine print, Yamaha recommends that you use 16 OHM speakers when running A AND B.

On a side note, I currently have the receiver running a pair of Onix Refrence 1's which are rated a 4 ohms without a problem. It is 2 channel, however, and I would expect the receiver to work well with 4 ohms on all channels.
 
J

JaceTheAce

Audioholic
jcPanny said:
If you read the fine print, Yamaha recommends that you use 16 OHM speakers when running A AND B.
:D haha I don't even think there's such thing as 16 OHM speakers, is there?
 

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