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Connecting one pair of speakers to 2 amplifiers

Last response: in Home Audio
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Situation
My AV-receiver is inferior to my stereo-amplifier when playing stereo music, and the AV-receiver doesn't have a pre-out for the front-speakers.

How I want to solve this
Connect both amplifiers with the speakers (so each speaker is wired to each amplifier) and only switch the power cables instead of switching the wires (or banana plugs). The amplifiers would never both receive power at the same time.

Question
Would it cause problems for the speakers and/or the amplifiers, when the speakers are connected to 2 amplifiers, even though one of these amplifiers is turned off?


Thanks in advance for your replies, because I sure don't want to blow up my speakers and/or amplifiers ;) 

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Best solution

Anonymous

I would avoid what you are proposing because the operating amp may be lookiing at an odd impedance if it is connected to the other amp even if that is off.

Better to look for a speaker switch box which caters for two sets of inputs. Or do what I do when I want to use my turntable via my NAD receiver instead of my Yamaha (which sounds better but has a faulty phono input) and just move the banana plugs.

Ok, thanks for your reply, that sounds like a risk I'd rather not try out then.

It seems pretty much impossible to find an amplifier switch box over here (The Netherlands). Only speaker switch boxes, and the manufacturers (I e-mailed them) all say their devices can't be used reversed (but none could tell me why...).

So after your reply and some search I found out, it should be easy to create myself (something like this).
Now I just wonder if there should be a specific maximum ampere the DPDT (2x) or 4PDT (1x) switch(es) would be able to handle?
Or a way to calculate that?

Edit: I used 2x DPDT switch of 10A. Works excellent and I can't hear any differences in sound quality.
 
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