[woby]

I am starting to wire up my multi-room audio system (russound with yamaha speakers) and think I may have made a mistake on a couple of speakers. I wired my bathrooms with two runs of speaker wire so that I can have stereo sound out of one speaker. For the bathrooms I purchased yamaha ns-iw280c speakers thinking they would do the trick. But when opening the box I see the speakers have only one set of wire connectors. Would I hook up the both positive wires (left and right) to the positive wire connector on the speaker and same on negative and get surround out of the one speaker or do I have to start shopping for other stereo speakers with a left and a right connection on them?

 

[audacity]

I'd recommend two options.

1. Replace the speaker with a dual voice coil speaker. I recommend you check out Monoprice, product id 4619. At $67.09/pair, these speakers are an amazingly good product. They sound great. This is probably the least expensive fix.

2. Fix it at the amplifier level. Get an amp that will mix down to mono and send the mono channel to your speaker (and you don't need the 2nd cable run). If you go to HTD (Home Theater Direct), and check out their multi channel amp: product code DMA-1240. Check the pictures of the back panel, note how each channel has a switch that can be set to L+R. That is basically what you want done.

You could also fix it at the source level. Mix your source to mono before it gets to your amp. There would be a different solutions for different sources. Unfortunately if this source is outputting to other zones that you want to be stereo it's a pretty big sacrifice, so I wouldn't seriously consider this option.

Stuff I don't recommend:

There are transformers that will convert from stereo to mono, but they are difficult to find. Resistors can also be used to matrix from stereo to mono, but if this is done incorrectly it can be a fire hazard.