Yamaha RX-A770 and Zone2 Impedance

[MikeFF]

Hi,

I've had a Yamaha RX-A770 for a few years with the Zone2 output sent to a pair of 6-ohm outdoor speakers. I wanted to add a second set of 6-ohm outdoor speakers in a different location, but be able to use either the first set of speakers, or the second set, or both. They would all be still controlled via the Zone2 output on the receiver.

I was looking at a simple switch, like the Monoprice 4-Channel Speaker Selector, that has a protection circuit. Is there any risk of damage to the receiver with using this switch and a second set of speakers, or is there a better way to configure this? Or should I try a Monoprice Dual Source 2-Channel A/B Speaker Selector w/ Volume Control that has an impedance matching built into it?

Thank you,
Mike

 

[swechsler]

For two sets of 6Ω speakers, you'll want something that does impedance matching, especially with outdoor speakers, where you're likely to require more power. If your wire runs are really long it's possible there's enough loss to bring the impedance per speaker up to 8Ω. That would require about 1Ω in each direction, for each speaker. If that's the case then a regular speaker switch should be fine.

One other method would be a series switch, which runs both speakers in series when they're connected at the same time, but this would put the dual speaker output about 6dB down vs a single speaker, so you'd need to readjust the volume whenever you switched from single to dual.

 

[MikeFF]

Thanks so much for the help! I am using 14 gauge wire and the runs are <100 feet for both sets of speakers. I think the Monoprice Dual Source 2-Channel A/B Speaker Selector w/ Volume Control has impedance matching and the documentation says it "maintains a load of 8 ohms" across the outputs, which sounds good, I just wanted to double check.

Thanks again!