[zyad]

Hi guys...
Finishing my basement and I want to use my home theatre receiver's (Pio 1020) Zone 2 output to power 4 in-ceiling speakers in the rec room.
I'm sure this is a silly question to those more knowledgable, but would it be possible to "split" (or double wire) 2 speakers to each one of the receiver's stereo Zone 2 ouputs?
The 4 speakers will mainly be used for background music, so they don't have to blast full power. The reason I want to use 4 speakers instead of 2 is for better sound distribution (the rec room area is pretty big).

 

[lex_rx]

Of course you can but be careful. Wire them in series and NOT in parallel.

http://www.termpro.com/articles/spkrz.html

 

[zyad]

Thanks for the tip.
Just curious: If I wire them in series, will the speaker downstream get less power than the one upstream (and hence have lower sound volume)?

 

[kharmicstorm]

Whether wired in series or paralell, as long as the impedance of each speaker is the same, each will receive the same power output. Check your owners manual on the 1020 as it may be 4 ohm stable, allowing you to use 2 8 ohm speakers in paralell per channel. if not, wire each string in series to present a 16 ohm load to the receiver, or find speakers that are either 4 or 16 ohms each and wire appropriately to present an 8 ohm load to the AVR. If you need a wiring diagram, just ask, I'll send one.

 

[Tunksy31]

Rather than worrying about impedance and wiring in series or parallel just pick up a cheap 4 zone speaker selector. Majority of them now a days are impedance matching and are set at 8ohms thus appearing to the amp as an 8ohm load. As long as you aren't trying to power multiple pairs of floor standing speakers and aren't blasting the room every night you will not "stress" out the amp to the point of failure.

 

[lex_rx]

With a Pioneer AVR, I would definitely wire the two pairs of speakers in series. I'd rather have bad sound quality than not getting any sound at all, e.g. AVR shutting down due to power load.

 

[kharmicstorm]

It appears Lex is right, at least for this AVR. I checked the manual and your AVR is not 4 ohm stable, therefore series wired 8's or 4's or parallel 16's are your only option (without adding dubious impedance matching doohicky's). This will not affect sound quality in any way, contrary to what other posters have said.

 

[zyad]

Thank you all... I will try in series.
Only thing that confused me in the original link (which seemed targetted towards car amps/speakers) is alternating the + / - cables between the speakers.

 

[kharmicstorm]

I looked at the link. It is correct. Best of luck on your setup!

 

[zyad]

EDIT:

Nevermind, I re-read the termpro.com link and all is clear now.