Need advice on set up

[billy]

Hi.

I just stumbled accross this site and I am looking for some advice. I am not at all familiar with stereo equipment. I own a small bar near Windsor, Ontario, Canada and I have been in search of the proper way to hook up some speakers. Here's the deal. I need to hook up 8 speakers (all new JBL 100w) to some sort of receiver. I use the radio and sometimes songs from my laptop. The bar is broken up into 3 zones. The inside (4 speakers), the front patio (2 speakers), and the back patio (2 speakers). I would like to be able to control the volume of each zone seperately so I could have the patio's louder or quieter then the inside or shut some zones off. (is this possible?). I currently have a JVC RX665V receiver that I run the 4 inside speakers with. Is this strong enough to run all 8 or do I need a better receiver? I stopped in at Best Buy and they suggested a Yamaha HTR5750S Dolby Digital Receiver on sale for $399.00 (Canadian). There is enough room in the back to hook up 8 speakers but to me it seems like there is a lot of extra stuff on this that I do not need. Any suggestions would be very helpful. Thanks

 

[morphsci]

The problem with hooking multiple speakers up to most receivers or amps is that it will present a load to the reciver that will be hard to drive. One solution is to use a speaker selector such as THIS ONE from Niles that also has volume controls for each speaker pair. Another option is to use a reciver or preamp that sends the audio signals to each zone which has its own speakers and amps. A much more expensive solution because you would need a new receiver/preamp and 4 stereo amps.

 

[Yikes]

You should not get a Home Theater receiver for this application. You want a stereo receiver. You need something like the Niles or this Russound http://www.russound.com/sdb4.1.htm to switch and control the volumes

Since there is impedance matching you don’t need to worry about damaging the receiver. For background music your JVC will probably work fine, however if you want to play it fairly loud you’ll want to get a better amp. Not a receiver.

Try the JVC. If the JVC shuts down or sounds bad post another question looking for amp recommendation.

 

[billy]

Thanks for the response. I was at a local music shop today and they suggested a Tortech (not sure of the spelling) pa 1120. They said it has built in volume controls for 4 zones. They said external volume controls are hard on the amp but they didn't mention that some have impedance matching as Yikes suggested. I would also have to buy 70v transformers for each speaker. Their price for the amp was $599 (Can).

 

[morphsci]

The speaker selector I linked to does have impedance matching and volume controls and does not require 70V transformers because it is made for the consumer gear you own and not professional gear. Depending on the price of the transformers the price of this may be better. I also did not do an extensive search for the linked selector so you may be able to find a better price. The Russound that Yikes linked to is similar to the Niles I linked to so you should check the prices of both. Does your JVC allow you to add external amps (i.e. does it have pre outs)? If so then adding sturdier amps is easy. Otherwise if the JVC does not have enough power you may want to look at a beefier stereo reciever.