Is there a way to split speaker signal without worrying about Ohms?

[akg4y]

I have 12 zones of audio in my build, but some of the zones will almost always be playing the same music (dining room/living room etc). I only have the C4 8x8 audio amp for now and was wondering if there was a relatively inexpensive way I could send the signal from one of the outputs to multiple zones without having to worry about how many speakers were on a given run. My zones have between 2-6 speakers each, so doubling up zones without some form of amp in the middle would mean up to 10 speakers on a single output of the amp which is bad news.

Is there any product that is basically a powered speaker audio splitter?

[thecodeman]

No, you always have to calculate for ohms, you cant get away from physics

As far as powered speaker systems go, yeah, you can get one, but you'll still have to make sure the ohms are right for your speakers and amp.

[akg4y]

Hm okay.. I guess I dont really understand the physics enough. I figured if you had a powered splitter then it would be able to handle more speakers.

Is there any way to do what I want? All of the speakers I have are 8 ohms and the wiring will be adjusted with resistors etc for each zone to be able to work from the amp directly, but if I want to put the output from a single zone on the amp to 2-3 zones of speakers what is the best way to do that?

[GoGo Delicious]

. . . . . I want to put the output from a single zone on the amp to 2-3 zones of speakers what is the best way to do that?

I think you need to re-think what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to take what's playing in Zone 1 and distribute it to Zone 2 and Zone 3? If so you would control this at the "Source". Say you are playing Sirius (The Source) in Zone 1 and you also want the same "Source" in Zone 2 and Zone 3 you would need a Matrix switch that will route the Audio to all 3 Zones.

[bebster]

You could run 2 8-ohm speakers off the same output, but not more. That way if, for example, the living room and dining room are open and next to each other you will get the same audio in both places. 2 8-ohm speakers on one output looks to the amp like 1 4-ohm speaker.

Another approach is to run one of the outputs of the amp through a manual speaker selector switch, like a Speakercraft S8 Speaker Selector. This will let you run more than 2 speakers off a single output. Cost is pretty nominal for the selector. Google it and you'll plenty of suppliers.

[akg4y]

Cool thanks, thats just what I was looking for! Does anyone know if there is something similar that can be controlled via IR or RS232?

[thecodeman]

But you still want to make sure that the final ohm load is acceptable for the speakers and the amp.

http://www.marktaw.com/recording/Electronics/OhmsAmpsandSpeakers.html

[akg4y]

Thanks for the link... yeah my installer said he would add in the appropriate resistors for my 4+ speaker zones, which I assume means he wired in parallel and will put in a 4 ohm resistor for each channel. I realized I really only have 11 speaker zones instead of 12, and of that 1 can be connected directly to a receiver leaving 2 without a source output. Either I can buy the 4x4 amp for $1200 or so, or I can just buy a cheap receiver for $150 and connect those to the A & B speaker outs if I dont want to deal with the ohms I guess.