Can I do this??

[THOR]

I am getting ready to make the move to a big screen projection TV, of course I want surround sound to go with it.

Here is my question:

When the living room is set up after the new TV gets here the TV and DVD and HT reciever will be on one wall, across from it on the opposite wall will be my audio rack and my stereo system. My CV's are in the corners on the TV wall and my Altecs are in the corners on the audio rack side and we have our sectional in the middle like so:

[THOR]

OK so what I want to know is:

Can I use my current speakers for front and rears and sub but also leave them hooked up in to my vintage stereo system?

What I am thinking is this:

On HT recievers there are sub pre outs, so I use Y cables to hook the 15" bottoms of my CV's powered by the 2 Luxman M-120A amps and by using the Y's they also stayed hooked to my current system.

I then run speaker cables from the HT reciever to the tops of my CV's to act as the front speakers and to my Altecs to act as the rears, as long as I get a HT reciever that has at least 100 wpc I should be OK. At the same time I leave the speaker cables hooked up to my stereo system as well (amps and pre), so basically each speaker has two sets of speaker wires going to it one for the HT and one for my stereo. This would be OK as long as I only run either one or the other at a time right?

I then get a center channel and hook it to the HT reciever and I have 5.1 surround.

Will this work OK? Any problems or suggestions?

[Lefty]

"so basically each speaker has two sets of speaker wires going to it one for the HT and one for my stereo. This would be OK as long as I only run either one or the other at a time right?"

This might work in theory, I would first want check out the circuit diagrams for both the receiver and amp, but the first time both get turned on by mistake, at the same time, it would most likely BURN YOUR WHOLE F**KING HOUSE DOWN and everything in it....:(

Better to have some kind of speaker selection switch designed for this kind of task. I have one that lets 2 amps (or receivers) share four sets of speakers in any combination one wants. I forget the brand and model but I'll post again when I get home.

Now that might mean you have to get your ass out of the soft seat and walk to the speaker switch and I'm sure that is not on your cool list. Maybe someone makes a speaker selection switch that has a remote?

Lefty

Not kidding, be safe

[millerdog]

I don't think hooking up your speaks to different inputs is good. Why not use a switch box?
There is also some optimum speaker placement for 5.1 to work correctly. If you think of the speaker placement as circular, the center channel dead on, the fronts are 30deg from center, the rears are 110deg from center.

[THOR]

Where can one get these "switchboxes"?

I can't mess around too much with speaker placement all four of these speakers are quite large in the CV's case over 4' tall and weighing over 100lbs each and I do have the WAF factor to worry about and not just that they kinda gotta be near where they are on the diagram just so they are not in the way, the diagram is a little off since the CV's will actually be as close to the TV as I can get them I don't know how close since they are not shielded.

[WildWest]

I currently use a Niles source selector switch. When I want my mains to be in the 5.1 mode running from the AVR I punch this switch in. When I want my main speakers to see the tube gear and turntable I let the switch out. Hmmmm you still have the problem of the LFE channel though.

[THOR]

LFE channel???

[WildWest]

Yes the LFE, "Low frequency effects" channel. It is the deticated channel that is part of the 5.1 audio output from Movie DVDs. It's from your sub woofer out on your new AVR.

[THOR]

Ok I am trying to see how a source selector or a speaker selector would work.

On the HT side I would have the HT reciever for the mains (top of CV's), rears (Altecs) and center, and would use the sub pre out to my 2 luxman amps powering the 15" ( the bottoms of my CV's) floor firing woofers.

On the stereo side I have a total of four amps hooked to my pre amp. The SAE amp powers the tops of the CV's and the 2 luxman amps in mono power the bottoms of the CV's and the 3rd Lux amp powers the Altecs.

I am looking on ebay and don't see anything that would allow me to hook up so many amps.

Am I missing anything? Please help, remember I am not too bright :(

[Night Wolf]

when I needed a speaker selector, I went on ebay and for $28 new I got a Woods brand (they make computer supplies like surge protectors etc..) that can take 2 amps and 4 speakers, becuase way back when, I used my JBL ND310's (now sold, thank god) as mains for HT and 2ch. stereo, so I had my JVC HT receiver and my Sony TA-2650 both hooked to the box.

Thor, you are trying to make the 15" woofers in your Vegas subs? don't

LEF=low frequency effects, bascially it is the .1 on 5.1 (becuase it has 1/10 of the bandwidth of the other channels) and depending on if you have your speakers set to large or small (large they get all the spectrum, small the bass get's cut off and sent to the mains if there is no sub or the sub is there is one, I dunno about your rec. but on my cheap JVC I can choose the crossover at 80/100/120, I keep it at 80 becuase my speakers have no problem doing that, pretty neat feature too)

I see what you are trying to say, run the 15's in the Vegas as subs then the "top" as you call it as normal speakers? don't becuase the internal crossover on the speakers will really mess that up (you would have a huge gap in the upperbass/lower midrange area)

if you want a sub, get the $350 kit at PE, if you wanna save $$$ get the $100 sub PE has.

just run your Vegas to a switch box into speaker 1, then the HT rec. to amp A and the other amp into amp B, and run the Vegas wide open on the HT amp, and set everything else to small, they should be able to handle all the bass

or just find a HT rec. with pre-out and use your Luxmans as the amp, so the rec. would just be a pre amp, and the Luxmans will power the Vegas no matter what (HT or stereo)

any other questions?

[Lefty]

OK Thor here is the scoop

The speaker selection box I have is called a RUSSOUND Multiplay HP-3. It's all metal and very heavy duty. I've seen this brand listed on E-bay so you might try there also. Here is their web site page for speaker selector products:

http://www.russound.com/speaker_selectors.htm

Kind of a super slow site for me so you might try a google search on russound and find dealers that might carry that line.

Lefty

'burnin down the house'

[THOR]

Nightwolf the 15's in my CV's are basically subs I am not making them anything, that is what they do already, that is why my CV's are supposed to be biamped and they have their own binding posts. There will be no gap just running the tops sounds like a great 3 way speaker system since there is a 12" woofer and two 5" mids and a tweet, the 15"ers just fill out the sound and add a some oomph and some room shaking. Getting an HT pre amp is out of the question because they are too expensive.


Lefty I do not see that model listed??

[THOR]

Still looking for help on this, I am not sure how I would use the speaker slector :confused:

[Lefty]

No it's not listed, they seem to have newer models that do the same thing. I got mine at a thrift for cheap. I suspect these go for bigger bucks then one might think. They have lots of power resistors inside so that you can drive many speakers in parallel but keep the load resistance above 4 ohms.

Seeing that you are pushing a ton of watts to your CVs I suspect you would exceed the power rating of these models.

Anyway what you need is a pair of simple 2 way speaker switches, but hooked up 'backwards'. The common goes to your speaker and the A and B go to your HT and Luxman amp. A stereo switch would let it be one switch or you would need two mono switches. Still at the power level you are running I would want to be sure you find switches that can handle the current. I'm not sure a simple radio shack speaker switch would hold up for you application.

Sorry that's about as much info as I can think of for the moment, maybe someone else can give you a more specific recommendation.

Lefty

[THOR]

Would this work lefty?

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F002%5F001%5F016%5F000&product%5Fid=40%2D132

I see no rating for wattage but I don't think it matters it looks like it works more in a mechanical way than electrical, like you said I just use one for each speaker and I use them in reverse, HT and amp on one side and out to speakers on the other select either A or B to choose either HT or amp but never ever A/B. This seems like it'll work eh?

[Lefty]

Hi Thor;

That will perform the function you want. However I wish it didn't have the A+B position as that could cause big problems if both the amp and the HT are on at the same time, just as if you had wired both straight to your speakers as you first proposed.

While it is a mechanical switch, it does have electrical contacts that are doing the switching and that is where your meg-a-watt Luxman might shorten the contact life. However that shouldn't cause any damage in it's self and if one doesn't last long you could then look for a heavy duty model or just keep replacing them as needed from the local RS.

Hint, draw it out on paper first after you get the switch before you start wiring it up. Then label the wires as far as where they come from, what channel they are,etc.

Lefty

[THOR]

There is little chance that the A/B thing will ever happen since not only would they have to be switched to A/B but also the respective amps and recievers will be on opposite sides of the room AND I always turn off one or the other when not listening and I would'nt use the HT except for watching movies.

As of right now I don't plan on using a switch for the two mono 300 watt Luxmans running the 15's since I believe I can use Y cables to hook them up to both the stereo preamp and the sub pre out on the HT reciever, this would work right?

[Lefty]

"As of right now I don't plan on using a switch for the two mono 300 watt Luxmans running the 15's since I believe I can use Y cables to hook them up to both the stereo preamp and the sub pre out on the HT reciever, this would work right?"

Yes, should work fine I think. A wiring diagram (readable?) of your whole system might be useful for future references to your various ideas and proposals.... one picture is worth 1k of text.
However pelease use some kind of drawing program that draws straight lines
;)

Lefty

[THOR]

Is this OK? I am only using one line to show each pair of speaker wires and I didn't show the interconnects between the pre amp and all the amps just as it pertains to the subwoofer question.

Also the TV I am interested in getting has speakers in it that can act as a center channel speaker so that would save me having to get one.

[THOR]

Lefty I have also acquired this amp:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3434&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

I am toying with the idea of throwing it into the mix and using it as a subwoofer amp to power the CV bottoms only during HT operations. If I did I would have to use the speaker switches like with the other stuff. What you think? Good? Bad? Could I run into trouble with running 300wpc and 450wpc amps through those switches?

[THOR]

Hello?????? Lefty where are ya?

[Lefty]

Yes you would need additional speaker switches as you are wishing to drive a speaker (CV woofer) from two different amps (Luxman mono and CV boat anchor).

As far as the power level Vs switch capacity, again the radio shack speaker switches don't look like a heavy duty model so the contacts might not hold up over time, but I don't think they could cause any damage so you might go ahead and try them as they are cheap and worth a try.

Lefty

PS: your drawing is pretty good, but it would be helpful if you could label which are inputs and which are outputs ( by putting arrow points maybe) and which are low level signal levels (preamp ins and outs) and which are high level speaker levels. I know most are obvious but it's easy to get cross eyed following a line.