outdoor speakers

[sherilees]

New at this. I have outdoor speakers that are wired to the same receiver as the indoor surround sound. Outdoor speakers have volume controls on wall at back door. Outdoor volume too low even with controls turned all the way up. To have decent sound outside it is way too loud inside. How do I "fix" this?

 

[AVRat]

Which receiver and are you running 5 or 7 channel surround?

 

[sherilees]

I am running 5 channel.

 

[sherilees]

Soory...and receiver is Danon AVR 1800.(About 9 - 10 years old..."outdated"? )

 

[AVRat]

Unfortunately, Denon no longer provides the manual on-line. The AVR-1800 is only 5-channel and has no extra zone feature. The band-aid solution I believe would be to run a connection out of the tape record out to a separate amp like an AudioSource 100. You can sometimes find a deal on these at ubid.com. The issue with this is that your volume is only controlled by the amp or wall control.

The better solution would be to upgrade your receiver.

 

[AVRat]

BTW, I would not continue using those connections, it could damage the surround channel amps.

 

[goodman]

Before making your outdoor speakers louder, have you considered your neighbors' feelings? They may love music, but not necessarily your music, and some of your neighbors may prefer peace and quiet. One person's music is another person's noise.

 

[tomd51]

Goodman, you sound like a victim of a bad neighbor at some point which, if that's the case, you have my sympathy, bad neighbors just suck out loud...

However, I think the OP is looking for something simple in the sense that they may want some background music outside that's at the same level as inside, this could be fairly low or it could be ear-shattering, impossible to tell from the information here. In addition to this, they could live half a mile away from their next door neighbor.

Just more food for thought... -TD

 

[AVRat]

I may have a couple more solutions for you:

1) Does the receiver have A & B speaker output? I know the 1801 does. If so, you could run the outdoor speakers off of the B output. You would then run the receiver in stereo mode using B speakers only.

2) You could use this A/B switch (www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=302-318) off of the L/R speakers again in stereo mode. This may not be an aesthetic solution, but it would work. Don’t know of an inexpensive box type A/B switch.

Please let us know if this info has been received.