Speaker and zone set up

[Red]

Does anyone know how many speakers I can hook up for each zone?

I have 28 speakers throughout the house which will be divided into eight zones. I have a surround sound set up for my TV with 5 speakers that I would like to put into one zone.

Right now I have one 8 zone 16-channel Control 4 amp. Will this suffice?

Thank you!

[ILoveC4]

No, that will not suffice. Get a receiver for the room you want 5.1 in. Depending in the speakers you can hook two speakers to each output - for a total of for power zone.

My advice...talk to a competent dealer.

[henniae]

We need to know the impedance of each speaker. The 16 zone amp is stable down to 4 ohms. Once you know the impedance of the speakers you can do the math and find the answer.

I am going to guess they are 8 ohm speakers. If you hookup two 8 ohm speakers in parallel you get a 4 ohm load. You would be able to hookup 2 speakers to each channel of the amp and be safe.

[EagleMoon]

I am going to guess they are 8 ohm speakers. If you hookup two 8 ohm speakers in parallel you get a 4 ohm load. You would be able to hookup 2 speakers to each channel of the amp and be safe.

Hmmmm.... That *may* be safe but then it may not be. To know for sure, you need details on the impedance characteristics of your speakers, not just the nominal impedance.

It's true that two 8ohm loads in parallel produce an effective 4 ohm load. However, the rated impedance of a speaker is it's "nominal" impedance. The actual impedance varies with frequency of signal it's reproducing. A nominal 8 ohm speaker can present a load below 4 ohms at some frequencies. Putting two of those in parallel would present an effective impedance of 1-2 ohms which might not be safe for some amps.

How the impedance varies is different for different speakers. And note that either series-wiring or putting different types of speakers in parallel with each other is probably asking for trouble.

Search the web for "speaker impedance curve" if you want some details.