Problem with adding a second set of speakers

[Chrisk327]

I just hooked up two new speakers to my HT system. I have my normal front speakers Wharfedale Diamonds as speaker set “A”, I just hooked up a set of Infinity OWS to speaker set “B” along with a volume control, for my dining room. I have a pioneer amp. Niether of these are set up as surrounds. These are the main speakers.

Now when I just set the receiver to play out of speaker set “A” it sounds fine, nice and loud. When I set it to play out of speaker set “B” it sounds fine nice and loud.

When I have it play out of “A” and “B” together. A gets very very soft and low, while B is loud and clear. You can barely hear A.

Can someone help me diagnose the problem?

 

[jcPanny]

Receiver A and B

Most receiver share and amp with the speaker A and B connections. Thus they can drive speaker A OR B, but not A AND B at the same time. Buy running A AND B your receivers is seeing a low impedence like 4 ohms instead of 8 ohms and will cause your receiver to overheat and go into shutdown.

Invest in an impedence matching speaker selector box so you can run speakers in both rooms at the same time.
OR
Connect the second room to the surround amps and run 7-channel stereo mode for sound in both rooms.

 

[Jack N]

When mixing speaker manufacturers, or sometimes just models within the same manufacturer, there’s a good possibility that you’re going to get speaker imbalances. This can be caused by: A) Speaker efficiency mismatch B) Impedance mismatch or C) Basic cabinet differences – IE: Size, Bass reflex vs. Air suspension, driver styles, etc., or any combination of those. You have at least one of those conditions present in your situation, and of course you need to find out the efficiency rating, impedance, and basic design differences of each one to find out where to start. From my experiences, and depending upon what sound differences you’re willing to accept, you’ll find that trying to even out speaker imbalances between different manufacturers is difficult at best. You can save yourself some frustration, and you’ll get better results, by using the same or very similar model speakers made by the same manufacturer. Caution, don’t let total channel impedance fall below 4 ohms.