Hooking up two sets of speakers to one stereo...how?

[bbernardini]

I finally got a new stereo here in the middle school music room. I hooked up the old speakers that have been in here for ages, and they seem to work well. However, I kind of like the high-end of the speakers that came with the new unit. Is there a way to hook both sets of speakers when there's only one connection on the back of the unit?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I went to Radio Shack & got wires that are spliced with 2 more plugs

so you can plug in 4 speakers and plug in the 2 extensions in the back of your receiver.

[bif]

2. Make sure you have enough power to drive 2 sets of speakers

You can do major damage to your receiver if not. Are they efficient speakers? How much power is your receiver?

[markbark]

3. Take note of impedance...

Easy to fry either the amp or speakers with impedance mismatching.

If your speakers are the wrong impedance, or you have hooked several speakers up in such a way that the combination presents the wrong impedance to the amplifier, you expose yourself to numerous problems. Impedance matching is necessary to:

* get optimum volume
* avoid wasting power
* avoid excess stress on your amp
* prevent damage to your amp
* avoid excess stress on your speakers
* prevent damage to your speakers
* reduce distortion and noise; get good tone
* avoid uneven sound distribution

Everything just works better if it's all matched.

According to legend, solid state (transistor) amplifiers (which is probably what you've got there) can drive higher impedances than their rating demands. So a transistor amp with a label saying "4-ohm" will drive 4, 8, and 16 ohms with no troubles. You can go up but not down.
A vast majority of consumer electronics these days use amps rated at 8 ohms of impedance.

That being said, you should probably hook up the speakers in series.
When two or more speakers are placed in series, the impedances add together to produce a higher impedance.

--------Pos(8 ohm speaker)Neg----+
                                 |
--------Neg(8 ohm speaker)Pos----+

Is the same as

--------Pos
        |
    (16 ohms)
        |
--------Neg

What you want to AVOID is this:

-------Pos---------Pos
        |           |
  (8 ohm speaker) (8 ohm speaker)
        |           |
-------Neg---------Neg

Which is really the same as:

-------Pos
        |
    (4 ohm speaker)
        |
-------Neg

Hope this helps :)

--MAB

[bbernardini]

4. Here's some more info...

The big speakers are 8 ohms. The little ones that came with the stereo are 6 ohms. Here's what the manual says about the amplifier:

Continuous RMS power output (reference);
15 + 15 W
(6 ohms at 1kHz, 10% THD)

Outputs
SPEAKER: Accepts impedance of 6 to 16 ohms.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. Are they RCA jacks? (one for each side?) Or one jack for the pair?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. If they are RCA jacks, try assembling two of these:

Left side goes to your stereo, right side goes one for the new speaker, one for the old (pardon the sloppy drawing):

[TrogL]

7. Danger Will Robinson

Don't mix those speakers. You're asking for trouble. Impedences must match. At 15 watts you don't have enough power to drive the speakers that come with it, nevermind anything else.

[bbernardini]

5. Kick!

[Elginoid]

8. try this setup- i got it from the back of Eno's Ambient 3 album...

and it's worked great for me.

hook-up the high-end speakers to the stereo normally, then connect one of the old speakers in this fashion:
run a lead from each of the POSITIVE speaker terminals to the third speaker, connecting one to the positive terminal, and one to the negative.
for best effect, the high-end speakers should be at the front of the room, and the third speaker in the center back of the room.