Hi all, I’m planning on setting up 4 ceiling speakers in a room and am about to run the wires and just want to double check with the community that I’m doing it right so I only have to do it once.
From the Sonos support site it says to always wire the speakers in parallel, but I’m just curious if that is the best way - on plenty of other sites online (non-Sonos specific) it says for 4 speakers from a single amp to wire them in Series-Parallel, as all my speakers are 8 Ohm, series-parallel would have 8 Ohm’s impedance, where as wiring in parallel would be 4 Ohm’s from my understanding.
Of course the amp is able to run 4 speakers in parallel, but I’d just like to know some opinions on what is the optimum way to set this up, and if there’s any benefit / harm in wiring it in series-parallel?
One other thing to note that I may be doing in the future is adding two additional speakers (8 Ohm) via an impedance-matching control, if that would influence any decisions on how to wire the initial 4 speakers.
Whether the speakers should be parallel depends on their impedance and whether they have serious impedance dips. It's also easier for Sonos to hit the higher power output numbers and that impresses people. IMO, ANY time someone wants to use a streaming device like Sonos, Denon's HEOS, Yamaha's MusicCast or something similar, a separate amplifier is best because it's more able to handle difficult loads and a good amplifier will offer more power.
By "series'parallel", are you asking about any benefits of each, or using series-parallel in order to install more speakers? Speakers with a crossover should only be wired parallel or separately on a channel, but it has been done without killing the system when the crossover is simple. Doesn't make it the right way, though.
If "might" means 'probably' WRT the third pair, wire the feed to a junction box in the area where the speakers will be located, then run the speaker wires FROM that box to the speaker locations. Leave the unused wires unconnected and don't strip their ends, to prevent them coming into contact with the other wires.IF you use them, fine and if not, also fine.