Home Audio question

[bossy22]

So, our house has ceiling speakers. 6 on the main floor, and two wires outside for a couple of outside speakers. I would like to hook up a receiver, something with wifi like the yamaha rn303 but it can only do 2 sets of speakers. Is there a way I can have 4 pairs of speakers all playing the same thing. It's on open concept floor, so having speakers playing different music wouldn't make any sense. Also, it will not be hooked up to a tv. We don't have a tv on the main floor. This is just for music. My wife would also like to get a turntable for this.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by bossy22

So, our house has ceiling speakers. 6 on the main floor, and two wires outside for a couple of outside speakers. I would like to hook up a receiver, something with wifi like the yamaha rn303 but it can only do 2 sets of speakers. Is there a way I can have 4 pairs of speakers all playing the same thing. It's on open concept floor, so having speakers playing different music wouldn't make any sense. Also, it will not be hooked up to a tv. We don't have a tv on the main floor. This is just for music. My wife would also like to get a turntable for this.

Assuming your speakers are all 8 ohms, you can add all of them in series or parallel to one set of +/- outputs.

You'll just get a reduction in maximum speaker volume corresponding to the number of speakers you add into chain and depending on the total impedance but unless you are really blasting it out it should be fine.

I used to ghetto this by just twisting the wires together from 2 sets and connecting them to the amp. Your mileage may vary and others with more knowledge may have more appropriate solutions.

One example:


https://geoffthegreygeek.com/multipl...s-share-power/

[J epworth]

Yeah I was in the same situation as you when I moved into my house, 3 pairs of ceiling speakers on main floor, I was able to twist the wires all together from the 3 sets and get all of them working with a Sonos Amp, was just a bit of a challenge figuring out left and right speakers are all correct with the 3 sets but it wasn't much of a challenge.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by bossy22

So, our house has ceiling speakers. 6 on the main floor, and two wires outside for a couple of outside speakers. I would like to hook up a receiver, something with wifi like the yamaha rn303 but it can only do 2 sets of speakers. Is there a way I can have 4 pairs of speakers all playing the same thing. It's on open concept floor, so having speakers playing different music wouldn't make any sense. Also, it will not be hooked up to a tv. We don't have a tv on the main floor. This is just for music. My wife would also like to get a turntable for this.

Some of the questions you should ask is whether you want the speakers to be able to play at independent volumes. If no, it's far easier.

Another is how you want to play music and/or if it's music only.

If it's just USB or certain mainstream steaming platforms and a handful of radio stations, far easier. But if it's casting from all sorts of different devices and software, it might be a little more complex.

The Allo Boss player seemed to work in a system like this:

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...ight=allo+boss

https://www.pishop.ca/product/boss-player-v1-2/

They're around $150 pre-built and it's basically a quality player you'd hook up to a receiver or amp. You can load music to a USB and connected to the raspberry pi and/or you can airplay from a variety of devices (although I don't know the limit of what is doable because I generally only cast from Spotify).

You'd still need a receiver or a power amp to actually power the speakers. I personally just use a $50 ish power amp that has 2 pairs of outputs (4 speakers). No idea how much more complex it would be to do 4 pairs and if twisting the groups together would be an issue. I'd assume a simple set up is around $250 ish. Slightly more for complex set ups ($400 ish?).

But for a turntable... I honestly have no clue about compatibility. I'd assume a consideration is where the receiver is actually located and if you need to turn on or off certain inputs.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

But for a turntable... I honestly have no clue about compatibility. I'd assume a consideration is where the receiver is actually located and if you need to turn on or off certain inputs.

Any turntable worth its salt will need a receiver with a phono-preamp to do the RIAA equalization. The original receiver he posted looks like it has one and probably has the ability to select Speaker Set A and Speaker Set B or both at the same time.

The other thing to bear in mind is that these are stereo outputs so there may be an imbalance of sound from each speaker if the music source has different instruments on left or right in the mix etc. To avoid this, the receiver also needs the ability to switch everything from stereo to mono.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Any turntable worth its salt will need a receiver with a phono-preamp to do the RIAA equalization. The original receiver he posted looks like it has one and probably has the ability to select Speaker Set A and Speaker Set B or both at the same time.

The other thing to bear in mind is that these are stereo outputs so there may be an imbalance of sound from each speaker if the music source has different instruments on left or right in the mix etc. To avoid this, the receiver also needs the ability to switch everything from stereo to mono.

You can also buy a decent separate phono pre amp for any where from 100 to 5000 bucks

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Any turntable worth its salt will need a receiver with a phono-preamp to do the RIAA equalization. The original receiver he posted looks like it has one and probably has the ability to select Speaker Set A and Speaker Set B or both at the same time.

The other thing to bear in mind is that these are stereo outputs so there may be an imbalance of sound from each speaker if the music source has different instruments on left or right in the mix etc. To avoid this, the receiver also needs the ability to switch everything from stereo to mono.

Oh, I read OP that there was a consideration of a receiver like the Yamaha, but OP had not actually chosen a receiver, so I wasn't sure of compatibility with the receiver in general. Also I had suggested a power amp/raspberry pi player combo and I had no clue how it would do if the set up was to a preamp/raspi player instead of a receiver/raspi player/casting/other inputs.