Hello all,
My apology if am not in the correct forum.
I am a tasked to set up my school sound system. We bought 2 pairs of speaker - 1 pair for indoor (staff room) use, and another pair for assembly. The amp rack (powered amp, mixer, EQ and CD player) is placed inside the staffroom. Usage of the system is not heavy, say once a week for about an hour.
We use the 2 pairs of speakers alternatively (i.e. Monday for school assembly, and Thursday for staff meeting)
Therefore, I am thinking of making a speaker selector switch box to enable switching in between the 2 pairs. I am thinking of using 2 switches (DPST; on-off) to select "indoor" and "outdoor" alternatively, and 3 pieces of 4-way speaker connectors. I am attaching the speaker placement layout for all to study.
Please kindly provide me the schematics for the selector switch box/console. My apology again for my poor English. 🙂
Thanks.
My apology if am not in the correct forum.
I am a tasked to set up my school sound system. We bought 2 pairs of speaker - 1 pair for indoor (staff room) use, and another pair for assembly. The amp rack (powered amp, mixer, EQ and CD player) is placed inside the staffroom. Usage of the system is not heavy, say once a week for about an hour.
We use the 2 pairs of speakers alternatively (i.e. Monday for school assembly, and Thursday for staff meeting)
Therefore, I am thinking of making a speaker selector switch box to enable switching in between the 2 pairs. I am thinking of using 2 switches (DPST; on-off) to select "indoor" and "outdoor" alternatively, and 3 pieces of 4-way speaker connectors. I am attaching the speaker placement layout for all to study.
Please kindly provide me the schematics for the selector switch box/console. My apology again for my poor English. 🙂
Thanks.
A single DPDT would suffice, connect the L/R + as in the picture, connect the - for both sets of L/R speakers together.
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Our Peavey CS2000 powered amp has two pairs of speaker outputs (L & R). I think they are meant for stereo effects, don't they?
The CS2000 has an A and B side, each with a Speakon and 5 way binding post output.
The inputs can be stereo or dual mono (mains and monitors, two different monitor mixes, whatever).
If you don't require stereo, you could simply wire the pair of indoor speakers to the "A" side and the outdoor speakers to the "B" side, and turn down the volume for the side you don't want to hear.
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Thanks. Got it. And a moment ago, a buddy emailed me this. Looks like he's kind of using both AB spearker outputs for both pairs (indoor & outdoor). Kindly comment on his schematic please.
p.s. Sorry for the poor graphics on MSWord here. 🙂
p.s. Sorry for the poor graphics on MSWord here. 🙂
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I had suggested a single DPDT so only one switch was needed for indoor/outdoor selection.
If you want the option of having all four indoor and outdoor speakers playing at once in stereo, use your buddies two DPST switch diagram.
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I have a similar question.
We recently moved house, and I got back our old Yamaha RX E400 receiver (tuner and amp). This has only one set of speaker binding posts, and has a pair of 6 Ω speakers; the receiver and speakers are in the living room.
SWMBO has asked me if I can wire up another pair of speakers in the bar, and maybe a third pair in another room. Both these are adjacent to the living room, so the cabling distance will be no longer than about twelve metres for each extra pair.
I've seen some inexpensive switches (by Veka and Hama, among others), for two or for four pairs of speakers. Since these are totally passive units, I would think that there is not really anything that they could do to degrade a signal (well, not that I would notice from the Yamaha receiver, with my cloth ears).
I would think I should match the impedence of the speakers, so the extra speakers should also be 6 Ω.
So imagine I move the existing 6 Ω speakers to the bar, put ceiling mounted speakers in the dropped ceiling of the living room, and got a four-way switch to allow the possibility of adding other extra pairs later.
If I have speakers A or B on, I should get the same sound as I do now. If I have A and B on, would the perceived sound be half as loud from each pair? Or is there a more complicated rule to apply, like for resistors in parallel ( A + B / A × B ).
And with A and B and C all on?
We recently moved house, and I got back our old Yamaha RX E400 receiver (tuner and amp). This has only one set of speaker binding posts, and has a pair of 6 Ω speakers; the receiver and speakers are in the living room.
SWMBO has asked me if I can wire up another pair of speakers in the bar, and maybe a third pair in another room. Both these are adjacent to the living room, so the cabling distance will be no longer than about twelve metres for each extra pair.
I've seen some inexpensive switches (by Veka and Hama, among others), for two or for four pairs of speakers. Since these are totally passive units, I would think that there is not really anything that they could do to degrade a signal (well, not that I would notice from the Yamaha receiver, with my cloth ears).
I would think I should match the impedence of the speakers, so the extra speakers should also be 6 Ω.
So imagine I move the existing 6 Ω speakers to the bar, put ceiling mounted speakers in the dropped ceiling of the living room, and got a four-way switch to allow the possibility of adding other extra pairs later.
If I have speakers A or B on, I should get the same sound as I do now. If I have A and B on, would the perceived sound be half as loud from each pair? Or is there a more complicated rule to apply, like for resistors in parallel ( A + B / A × B ).
And with A and B and C all on?
Matching the speakers impedance only assures the same level from each if they are the same sensitivity, an 8 ohm ceiling speaker may be more sensitive than 6 ohm "hi-fi" speakers.
Assuming the speakers used are the same efficiency and impedance, and the amp works as a voltage source, the speakers will all receive the same power when added in parallel, so the level per speaker will remain the same. The smallest room will sound the loudest.
If the second pair of speakers were in the same room, there would be an approximate 6 dB gain, 3 dB from doubling cone area, + 3 dB from doubling power, as the impedance is halved, the (perfect) amp puts out twice the power.
The RX-E400 back panel has a warning "8 ohms minimum", though it's rated power is at 6 ohms. 3 six ohm speakers in parallel would present the amp with a 2 ohm load, although it may work, it could easily be overheated if turned up loud, and may cause the output transistors to fail or the protection circuit to activate.
Wiring the speakers in series would be safe for the amp, though rather complicated, and when all three pairs are hooked up, they would get about 4.5 dB less power per speaker, probably not a big deal, as none of the speakers will need to be as loud to hear them all around the house.
Alternatively you could use a pair of 8 ohm speakers in series in each location (12 speakers total) and switch them on in parallel (the normal type of speaker switching) for a combined load of 5.3 ohms, which the amp can probably handle OK.
This would allow about 10 dB more clean output level than the series arrangement.
It takes approximately 10 dB increase in level to sound twice as loud.
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