[molibra]


I have a yamaha 5.1 surround in our basement setup with both front and center speakers on the wall with the TVs and the rear speakers in the bar area and the receiver setting on music so it plays equal sound everywhere.

 

What Id like to do is add one or two speakers on the speaker wire running to the rear speakers.  Is this as easy as cutting the existing run, adding a run to the new speaker and then pig tailing all three together(two ends of existing and new run)?

 

The speakers I am wanting to add were given to me for free in the box. It says on the box their 45Hz to 20KHz +/- 3dB, 8-0hm 

if that helps.

 

I obviously know very little about this stuff, but aren't the ohms the speakers are pulling the main thing to not overload by receiver?

 

Thanks for any help!

 

[fcwilt]

The Yamaha unit should say somewhere in the specs what the minimum load (in ohms) that the unit will drive for each channel - the front might be different from the back so you need to check carefully.


Then you need to be sure that that speakers you are using meet this requirement.


Lets say, just for example, that the rear channels of the unit will drive speakers as low as 4 ohms AND all of the speakers that you wish to use on the rear channels (including the existing ones) are 8 ohm.


If you put all of the speakers (on any given channel) in parallel (red to red to red, black to black to black) then the result will be 2.66 ohms which is less then 4 and therefore is not an acceptable arrangement.


If you put the two new speakers in series (black on one to red on the other) and put that pair in parallel with the existing speaker the result will be 5.3 ohms which is fine.


So check the specs on the Yamaha.



This site has a little calculator that can do the math for you if desired:

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-paralresist.htm