• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Fuse Protecting multiple speakers

Manchophile said:
Did you look at the attachment? It shows two pairs of speakers being fused on + terminal. It does not say anything about them being the same speaker or the same watts per the equation. I think everyone is missing the point here and I do not mean to be condescending or act like I know what I am talking about. How about this.
1. I like vintage equipment
2. I have speakers with different Watts. ALL ARE 8 Ohms.
3. I would like to use my PL with some or all of them. Whatever is safe. Darkblue is obviously just an antagonist and he has had nothing to add but negative comments and cliche stuff found on speakers and amps for dummies.
4. What would be the best solution to add the PL into my listening experience. I am fine with whatever is logical and safe. I am smart.
5. Should I ditch the speaker fusing and just use my common sense? IE, just manage my volume and my common sense? I want to be happy and listen to loud music. I have what I have and have to work with it. It is a problem and can be solved. If my phase linear can only control two sets of speakers in series of the same manufacturer then so be it. I can use in basement and line feed off the pre amp. I can use other two off kenwood and be happy.
6. I am looking for a solution. I wish I was as smart as you guys but at least I am not stupid and can take constructive criticism. Not negative.

Thank you again

Mike
Click to expand...

Mike, I believe what you are experiencing here is a little rejection, because what you want to do violates many of the tenets of audiophiles. I mean, mixing all of these dissimilar speakers will produce a loud noise, but nothing even close to the high quality sound that most of those on this board strive to achieve.

Be that as it may, the best way for you to play all four speaker systems at once is hook two pairs to each amp. Use the series connection method for the PL. The Kenwood will put the speaker's in series when you use the A & B speaker outputs.

Now the best way to handle the audio signal, is to get a preamp. Connect all sources to the preamp. Connect the output of the preamp to the input of the PL.

Connect the Record Out of the preamp to the Aux input on the Kenwood. Now you'll have the same signal going to all 4 sets of speakers and you will have two volume controls, one control for each pair of speakers sets.

As for fuses, since you are connecting everything in series, I would not even worry about it. The noise will be unpleasant enough, that you probably will NOT be cranking this all that high.

Regards,
Jerry

PS: Once you get it all connected, post here how it sounds. You still have one more step and that has to do with phase. We will deal with that at the appropriate time.
 
Last edited:
You keep bring up watts. Watts have nothing to do with what you want to do. It is all about impedance. Your amp like to see a 8 ohm load. Two speakers in parallel equal 4 ohms or lower. Your amp may do OK with this. but any more speakers with cause it to fail. I use to work on those amps for BOB and they are not a very stable amp. They made a very loud noise when they fail and they almost always eat any speakers connected to them. Sometimes known as the fire breathing amp. I had a commercial Carver I use to run down to 1 ohm loads and it would take it or safely cut out. I believe the circuit on your amp that cuts it off is rather slow and the amp self destructs most of them did not have the protection circuit. It cost big bucks to rebuild them. I kept one going for a lot of years but the last time it eat a set of speakers I got rid of it. They do make a lot of smoke when they let go.. There are ways to connect up multiple speakers in series and parallel that someone else mentioned . Look it up on Google. Hope this helps.
Ed
 
Last edited:
If you want to do a strictly series setup as shown in the diagram, then calculate the value based on the speaker that can handle the smallest amount of power. Keep in mind that you'll get a lot less power that way, since the amp will see a 24 Ω load. So to start out, you'll only be getting 66 of the 200 watts that the amp is rated for. Divide that by 3 and each speaker will get 22 watts max.
 
Hook em all up in series and place a 4.0 amp fast blow fuse inline and be done. You really only need to protect them from DC should the amp go awry, and if you do lose an output transistor and DC flows the 4.0 amp fuse will blow just fine and protect your speakers. Most folks with typical amps that have DC protect inside don't fuse their speakers at all and are fine, and so should you be until your fuse blows from too much power or a blown output transistor and DC city. In the event of fuse blowing w/o amp failure you just stick in another, smile and go on. You can adjust this value if it blows and you know you are not clipping (sounds great) and the amp is not getting too hot.

If it were me I'd sell all those speakers and get something better/capable of handling what the PL400 can do and hook them up with a similar fuse and let it rip. Would sound a lot better than the setup you are proposing. And definitely don't go in paralell with all those speakers, you will smoke your amp! I have some PL amps and if they have been refurbed or better yet WOPL'd, they can do all kinda good things for your ears!
 
Last edited:
Gibsonian said:
And definitely don't go in series with all those speakers, you will smoke your amp! I have some PL amps and if they have been refurbed or better yet WOPL'd, they can do all kinda good things for your ears!
Click to expand...
Putting them all in series will present a very light load for the amp. Maybe you meant "don't go in parallel"?
 
swechsler said:
If you want to do a strictly series setup as shown in the diagram, then calculate the value based on the speaker that can handle the smallest amount of power. Keep in mind that you'll get a lot less power that way, since the amp will see a 24 Ω load. So to start out, you'll only be getting 66 of the 200 watts that the amp is rated for. Divide that by 3 and each speaker will get 22 watts max.
Click to expand...

I was hoping someone would just finally answer the question as asked.
 
Who the Hell does Georg Ohm think he is, anyway? Hook 'em ALL up and crank the volume and let us know how it sounds.
Meanwhile, I gotta go mount a lawn mower engine in my 73 Sedan Deville.
See ya'.
 
No one has brought this up so I'll add an additional level of complexity. All of those different speakers will have different sensitivities in db output per watt of input. So even though you'll be running X amount of power through the whole string (if wired in series) they will not all play at the same volume. This will add to the sonic mess.

If it were me, I'd do what was suggested above: connect two to the Kenwood and two to the PL using their recommended wiring. I don't know the power output of the Kenny but assuming it's lower, find the two pairs that are the most sensitive - i.e. which ones play the loudest with the volume control in the same place - and drive those with the lower powered amp.

You'll find that AKers are generally helpful but sometimes the answer is not as simple as you thought the question was. :biggrin: The value of consulting a collective brain is that you learn a lot more about the question itself, including, sometimes, questions you didn't think to ask. It helps to have a little patience because we're not an instant answer dispensing machine. I only know all this because I've been there. Chill out and you'll have a great time here. :thumbsup:
 
swechsler said:
If you just want to connect one pair at a time to hear the amp work, you don't need a fuse if you exercise some common sense:
  1. Make sure all your connections are clean and corrosion-free (especially between the amp and the receiver). This especially applies to the input jacks on the amp.
  2. Make sure your volume control doesn't produce any static (hook up a pair of speakers to the receiver and turn it on with no input, then move the volume up and down. You should hear nothing)
  3. Don't make any connection changes with any of the equipment powered on
  4. Keep the volume at a reasonable level
Power ratings on speakers are almost completely meaningless. What can kill speakers is peaks or distortion ("clipping") due to underpowering. With that amp you won't have to worry about the latter, but the former can be caused, even at lower volumes, by noisy controls.

ETA: OK, after having thought about your question for a while, I've finally figured out how to answer it. The problem is that your post was confusing and inconsistent with your later post (first you mention parallel, then series). In any event, keep in mind that the fuse is to protect the speaker, not the amp, so if you want to hook up multiple pairs of speakers, you should fuse each speaker separately based on, if you like, the stated power handling of that speaker. The problem is that fuses won't always help you - the rated value may prevent you from overpowering a woofer, but not necessarily a tweeter, which requires a fraction of the power (I'm surprised more speakers don't have separate fuses for each driver).

At any rate I believe the conventional wisdom is to use fast blow fuses, since some peaks may be high enough to melt a tweeter's voice coil but too fast to trip the fuse.
Click to expand...

I like your answers and soilutions. I put a 2 amp fuse on the outputs of the PL and hooked up my sansui speakers. I started to turn up and it blew a fuse on right side. It was a fast blow fuse. So I hooked up my kenwood test speakers after passing through a klipsch sub woofer (passive) and have it cranking now. It has not blown a fuse yet. My peak power on the PL is about 60-100W. Since my kenwood is a vintage amp and has no line output except the headphone jack and the tape record out, what would you suggest as far as hooking it up to the PL? Also a suggestion to better wire the speakers other than fusing them individually. I think that would be tedious and too many connections. I know they are different wattages and different in general. Series or Parallel? I forgot to mention I also have a pair of vintage fischer x-10's that I rebuilt with new capacitors (Jensen, Solen, and Dayton). those would replace the kenwood test speakers in the mix. I bought this PL so I could run sound into my basement from upstairs and listen to really loud music. Should I just run two pairs off the kenwood upstairs and then run an rca off the tape out to the pre amp, PL, then run two sets of speakers in the downstairs. Parallel or series? I was hoping I could run all 4 sets of speakers off the PL and have a preamp downstairs to adjust the volume different than upstairs. I guess I am a little confused about the intended use of a PL unless you have only 2 sets of speakers that are the same and just run off a good amp/receiver with pre outs. I am looking for a good way to use the PL without burning it up or burrning my house down. Thanks again.
 
toxcrusadr said:
No one has brought this up so I'll add an additional level of complexity. All of those different speakers will have different sensitivities in db output per watt of input. So even though you'll be running X amount of power through the whole string (if wired in series) they will not all play at the same volume. This will add to the sonic mess.

If it were me, I'd do what was suggested above: connect two to the Kenwood and two to the PL using their recommended wiring. I don't know the power output of the Kenny but assuming it's lower, find the two pairs that are the most sensitive - i.e. which ones play the loudest with the volume control in the same place - and drive those with the lower powered amp.

You'll find that AKers are generally helpful but sometimes the answer is not as simple as you thought the question was. :biggrin: The value of consulting a collective brain is that you learn a lot more about the question itself, including, sometimes, questions you didn't think to ask. It helps to have a little patience because we're not an instant answer dispensing machine. I only know all this because I've been there. Chill out and you'll have a great time here. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Thank you. I will chill out. The popcorn deal was funny. I do not think it was necessary but I am from California and I like to screw with people and press their buttons. I get it.
 
fuse is maybe best at the amplifier rather than at each speaker . especially if wiring speakers in parallel .
or in series come to think of it .
not sure if you are aware but external speaker protect circuits are available to buy and work much faster than fuses .
 
It seems like a waste of a power amp not to use the one in the Kenny. If it was me, I'd put it on one floor and put the PL with a preamp in the other. Actually if all you need to do is control the PL's volume with that preamp, you could just get a simple stereo volume control to put in front of the PL. Unless you have the pre already.

Not going to tell you how to enjoy your music, but you may, at some point, begin to appreciate stereo imaging and the clear unmuddied sound of one pair of speakers playing at a time. Especially a really good pair, better than all of the current ones combined, which you will acquire eventually like everyone does. :p But as long as you don't blow anything up, you can listen however you want for as long as you want. That's the beauty of it.
 
i have mixed different speakers in the past and have had pleasant results ,,sometimes thinking out of the box makes a result
 
petehall347 said:
fuse is maybe best at the amplifier rather than at each speaker . especially if wiring speakers in parallel .
or in series come to think of it .
not sure if you are aware but external speaker protect circuits are available to buy and work much faster than fuses .
Click to expand...

do I calculate fuse amps based on all wattage of all speakers combined (P) and use 4R? so I = sqrt(P/4R)? So in my case if I have 225 total max watts and all speakers are 8 ohms on speakers in series (wheather 1,2,3,or 4 sets) I can use the amp of fuse given by the equation? nobody has answered that. I just would like to know if there is a difference if you have more than one set of speakers or two sets of the same speakers IF THE EQUATION STILL IS VALID TO A POINT? It is a very tricky problem I know but I want to be safe.
 
start with amplifier ratings and fuse accordingly .. i am just thinking that some amplifiers have fuses installed that use this method .
 
I inquired to a member who suppsedly makes a circuit for the PL 400 that protects speakers. I have not heard back. Also is the best option to feed the preamp through my vintage kenwood through the tape out (record) or the headophnoe jack? Just asking. I only have two options with a vintage receiver. It is 40w per channel btw.
 
petehall347 said:
start with amplifier ratings and fuse accordingly .. i am just thinking that some amplifiers have fuses installed that use this method .
Click to expand...

Speaker fusing has nothing to do with the amp. It has to do with speaker. It protects the speaker independent from the amp since there is nothing in the amo to monitor or regulate the current output.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom