Best Way to Power Two Sets of Speakers??

[snowsharkeus]

I have two sets of outdoor speakers (one on one side of my yard and
another on the other side of my yard...picture a pie shaped lot with a
house dysecting the slice of pie) that are currently connected to an
under-powered receiver. I'm looking to replace the receiver with
something with more power. However, I only need STEREO audio, not
surround sound.

Would I be better off going with a 200 Watt Stereo Receiver that has an
A, B, and A/B speaker setting (effectively getting 50 Watts to each of
the four speakers when running A/B), or is there a way that I'd be able
to use a Surround Sound Receiver of the 100 Watt per channel variety to
get 100 Watts to each speaker? I'm completely uneducated on the whole
world of surround sound and how those receivers work, but I'm thinking
there may be a way to use such a receiver to accomplish what I'm
looking for, while also giving me the ability to choose speaker set A,
speaker set B, or both. There are times where I only want music on one
side of the yard or the other...

Any sound advice would be appreciated! ;-)

[Walt]

snowsharkeus wrote:

> I have two sets of outdoor speakers (one on one side of my yard and
> another on the other side of my yard...picture a pie shaped lot with a
> house dysecting the slice of pie) that are currently connected to an
> under-powered receiver. I'm looking to replace the receiver with
> something with more power. However, I only need STEREO audio, not
> surround sound.
>
> Would I be better off going with a 200 Watt Stereo Receiver that has an
> A, B, and A/B speaker setting (effectively getting 50 Watts to each of
> the four speakers when running A/B), or is there a way that I'd be able
> to use a Surround Sound Receiver of the 100 Watt per channel variety to
> get 100 Watts to each speaker? I'm completely uneducated on the whole
> world of surround sound and how those receivers work, but I'm thinking
> there may be a way to use such a receiver to accomplish what I'm
> looking for, while also giving me the ability to choose speaker set A,
> speaker set B, or both. There are times where I only want music on one
> side of the yard or the other...


Most surround sound receivers use smallish amplifiers for the rear
channels and what comes out of the rear is not going to be the main
stereo program. In short, you don't want to attempt to use a surround
sound receiver for your situation.

The simplest way to do it is just get a receiver with A and B speaker
outputs. Note that when you connect both sets of speakers, the amp will
see a 4 ohm load instead of an 8 ohm load, and typically an amp will put
out 150% to 200% as much power into a 4 ohm load as it will into an 8
ohm load.

If you go with, say, a 100 watt per channel amp, it should put out
something like 150 watts per channel into four ohms. Stated another
way, when you're running one set of speakers you can push 100 wats per
box, but when you run both sets each box will get 75, not 50 as might be
expected. Better amps will have specs for 8 ohm ond 4 ohm loads - look
at that figure. And keep in mind that 75 watts should be plenty to
annoy your neighbors.

Another approach is separate amps for each set of speakers. This has
the advantage of allowing separate volume control (as opposed to ON/OFF
with the single receiver). If you don't need separate volume control, go
with one amp/receiver.

//Walt

[snowsharkeus]

Thanks!! This is exactly the info I was looking for!

Mark