Running two amps through one CD player
- Thread starter lovemusic
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Covenanter
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- Jul 20, 2012
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I've posted on your other thread about this but to clarify here:
1) You can't measure speakers' impedance simply as I think you have been doing. If you use an ordinary meter it will just measure the resistive part of the impedance and not the capacitive and inductive part. If they say 4 ohms they probably are (or close enough as makes no difference).
2) If you wire 2 sets of speakers to your amplifier you effectively halve the impedance so it will look like a 2 ohm speaker as seen by your amplifier. If this is outside the range specified for your amplifier it will clip / distort / burn out! DON'T DO IT!
3) Using 2 amps and 1 source just isn't worth the effort although in principle it could work. Amps aren't identical and you would be getting different sounds from each and the final result would be a hodge-podge.
My advice would be to drop the 4 speaker idea and just get a well-matched amplifier and speaker setup that produces the sound (quality and volume) that you want and forget all the complications.
Chris
1) You can't measure speakers' impedance simply as I think you have been doing. If you use an ordinary meter it will just measure the resistive part of the impedance and not the capacitive and inductive part. If they say 4 ohms they probably are (or close enough as makes no difference).
2) If you wire 2 sets of speakers to your amplifier you effectively halve the impedance so it will look like a 2 ohm speaker as seen by your amplifier. If this is outside the range specified for your amplifier it will clip / distort / burn out! DON'T DO IT!
3) Using 2 amps and 1 source just isn't worth the effort although in principle it could work. Amps aren't identical and you would be getting different sounds from each and the final result would be a hodge-podge.
My advice would be to drop the 4 speaker idea and just get a well-matched amplifier and speaker setup that produces the sound (quality and volume) that you want and forget all the complications.
Chris
Sounds a lot of a faff tbh.
But if you really do need to send one source to two different amps it's not rocket science. Plug the CD into the A400, patch the tape-out to a line input on the Yamaha and that's the job done (or the other way round, depending on which amp you consider your main amp). Can't believe the dealer didn't think of that, it's common sense.
But if you really do need to send one source to two different amps it's not rocket science. Plug the CD into the A400, patch the tape-out to a line input on the Yamaha and that's the job done (or the other way round, depending on which amp you consider your main amp). Can't believe the dealer didn't think of that, it's common sense.
What effort? How difficult is it to run an interconnect from one amp's tape out to a line input on another amp?Covenanter said:
I'm mystifyed by how anyone is seeing this as at all complicated. :?
Though you're spot-on about feeding two sets of speakers from an amp not designed to do so. It's not a good idea.
First of all amplifiers of similar cost and power will sound almost identical to be honest. So this is not a good reason not to use two amps.
Now a CD player should be able to drive two amps directly but interconnects to do this are not readily available so the method suggested here is perfectly adequate. Although this relies that the tapeout used is not deteriorating the CD signal significatly when driving the second amp. Also using two amps will give you the added benefit of controlling the volume between front and rear speakers to your own choice which you can't get using just the one ampliefier.
Now a CD player should be able to drive two amps directly but interconnects to do this are not readily available so the method suggested here is perfectly adequate. Although this relies that the tapeout used is not deteriorating the CD signal significatly when driving the second amp. Also using two amps will give you the added benefit of controlling the volume between front and rear speakers to your own choice which you can't get using just the one ampliefier.
Thanks everyone 
Regards measuring the ohms a normal volt metre was used, I see what you are saying, it might not matter though because I'm about to divorce him . lol............................. :roll:
I was cleaning up and he snook out and came back with a Yamaha AS500................following on tomorrow is a Marantz CD6004.........................then he has just told me he needs 48 metres of thicker speaker cable ???????? That's new cable we have now, it isn't thick enough I'm told !!
If this doesn't work he will have to just run one set of Dalis and like it.....................anyway when I get my way they will end up being replaced by a nice set of floorstanding B&W's............................ :help:
Regards measuring the ohms a normal volt metre was used, I see what you are saying, it might not matter though because I'm about to divorce him . lol............................. :roll:
I was cleaning up and he snook out and came back with a Yamaha AS500................following on tomorrow is a Marantz CD6004.........................then he has just told me he needs 48 metres of thicker speaker cable ???????? That's new cable we have now, it isn't thick enough I'm told !!
If this doesn't work he will have to just run one set of Dalis and like it.....................anyway when I get my way they will end up being replaced by a nice set of floorstanding B&W's............................ :help:
48 meters of good quality thick cable won't do any good to sound really. You need to reduce the length to the minimum.At least using cheap speaker cable at 48meter will allow you to drive 4 ohms speaker in parallel as the cable resistance will be quite high. Is possible the maratz was not driving your speaker combination because of bad capacitive or inductive load introduce by the long speaker wires!!! This is another reason for optin for two amplifiers. Place the amplifier near the rear speakers and one near the front speaker and run minimal length speakaer wires. I good line interconnect should induce less sound degradation then long running speaker wires, particular so as you are running 4 ohms speakers. Also this explains why you hear difference between the front and rear Dali's. Most likely the ones that sound better running the shorter speaker cable.
Thanks very much for your advice
We've cracked it now thanks, he's got the Yamaha AS500 up and running and we love it, it is fantastic in that room with our speakers at all volumes, very low to louder than we can listen to. We like it much more than the Marantz PM6004, that was great, this is fantastic in our lounge and with our speakers.
Just got to pick up the Marantz CD6004 tomorrow, hopefully that will pair nicely with the Yamaha, our old Yam CD player doesn't always play every disk (lense has been cleaned as well) The remote is also a bit dodgy.
Thanks everyone :rockout:
We've cracked it now thanks, he's got the Yamaha AS500 up and running and we love it, it is fantastic in that room with our speakers at all volumes, very low to louder than we can listen to. We like it much more than the Marantz PM6004, that was great, this is fantastic in our lounge and with our speakers.
Just got to pick up the Marantz CD6004 tomorrow, hopefully that will pair nicely with the Yamaha, our old Yam CD player doesn't always play every disk (lense has been cleaned as well) The remote is also a bit dodgy.
Thanks everyone :rockout:
BigH said:
Thanks, we liked the CD6004 when we tried it with the PM6004. The only thing I don't like about it is that it sits on standby, there's no on and off button. But it did sound really nice with the PM6004. Hoping that is sounds great with the Yamaha AS500. I'll report back
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