Same speakers for Hi-Fi and AV fronts?

shayser

I've a pair of Monitor Audio BRX5s powered by a Marantz PM6003. They are bi-wireable but not bi-wired.

I also have an Onkyo 806 AV Receiver.

Can I run wire from both amps to the separate connections on the speakers?

Would I need one amp always powered off?

meep

Oh. I'm not sure that would be such an excellent idea but I'm not that knowledgeable to tell you why! It just doesn't sound like a great plan.

Why not take the pre-out for left & right channels from your receiver and pass it into an input on your amp. Then the amp will always drive the speakers, though you'll have to switch inputs on the amp when you want to watch a movie vs. music.

shayser

Here's a Paint Shop Pro 5 masterpiece, showing what I mean, just in case we get our wires crossed (boom, boom).

Red Alert

Seriously - don't try that. You will end up ruining at least one amp, probably both.

Fuzzy Clam

meep wrote: »

Why not take the pre-out for left & right channels from your receiver and pass it into an input on your amp. Then the amp will always drive the speakers, though you'll have to switch inputs on the amp when you want to watch a movie vs. music.

^^^^^^ Wot he said.

shayser

Cheers for the replies.

I'm not exactly clear on how pre-outs work. I'm not at home right now. I suppose if I looked at the back of the amps I would see what's what?

Let me guess:

One set of wires from the stereo amp to the speakers.

Pre-out on the receiver to an input (aux?) on the stereo amp.

When watching a movie, I put the the stereo amp on aux. Put it back to CD when listening to a CD.

Does the AV receiver know to send the front sound to the pre-out or does it need configuring?

What about sound/speaker setup on the av amp?

Sorry for the basic questions.

Slaphead07

shayser wrote: »

They are bi-wireable but not bi-wired......
Can I run wire from both amps to the separate connections on the speakers?

I have very loud alarm bells going off... bi wired does not mean using two amps unless you use one amp for treble and another one for bass.

The connections on the speakers are for treble and bass and the cable coming from the amp must be connected to both ie right channel to BOTH + connects and left to BOTH - connections. Usually these speakers will come with brass "jumpers" which connect the two + sockets. Check this. You might be just running woofers or just tweeters.

meep

Pre outs give you the signal, usually via via phono jacks, before it gets passed to the amplifier section of your receiver. (pre-out is short for pre amplification output).

You can use them to send one or more of your channels to a different or additional amplifier.

You have described the procedure correctly.

Usually, the pre-outs will work automatically and output a signal regardless of whether you have speakers attached or not.

You will find pre-outs for each of your channels. So, if you have a 5.1 receiver, you'll find 6 phono outs labeled front left, front right etc. (your subwoofer output is essentially a pre-out as most subs have most built in).

Your receiver sends the correct channel to the correct pre-out.

If you don't connect speakers to front l/r on your receiver, it's not a big deal, your amplifier will drive those speakers.


I think this is your receiver (TX-SR806):

shayser

I'm going to give this a go tonight. Is it standard phono interconnect leads I need?

Also, would the Audyssey MultEQ setup see the speakers when they're set up this way?

shayser

Got it set up. The BX5s are a huge improvement on the Aego Ts

One thing...

I thought, rather than have the volume on the Marantz amp way up when watching TV, I would go into the Onkyo setup and increase the dB for the new fronts. I did this, turning down the Marantz first then gradually increasing the dB until the test tones were at the level I wanted. In the end, they went from about about -12 to +7, but then when I exited the Onkyo setup and went back to TV, I still had to pump up the Marantz. The changes don't seem to have made much difference