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I want to switch between three or four speakers using only one amp.

Signal flow as follows: Ashley Protea EQ System (128 presets i can switch easily between presets), Electro-Voice amp, The switch I need to buy(or build), Yamaha NS10s and/or Alesis Monitor Two, and/or home speakers. Because I have the Ashley EQ I think it would be cost effective to use it instead of buying more amps.
Niles makes a 10 way that does 200 watt RMS on ALL 10 set of speakers at ONE TIME but it is active and I think it may "color" my sound too much. I would prefer clean signal to having all 10 speakers at one time, but that is nice.

OR do you think something like this would work: http://www.audiople…"]Untitled Document[/]="http://www.audiople…"]Untitled Document[/]

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RemyRAD Sun, 07/31/2011 - 22:35

Radio Shaft actually has some speaker switching boxes. But none of us recommend us. Each speaker needs to be in its own amplifier because of the differences in their sensitivity & efficiency levels. And generally one of nice thick speaker cable going from your amplifier to your monitors and the little speaker boxes are not meant for professional applications. So if you want multiple monitors, you need multiple amplifiers. Either that or you must switch to powered monitors. These only require a line level input source to each active monitor. The switching systems for that don't need to handle high power then. It's sort of like car tires. You can't drive your vehicle which requires 4 tires on a single tire. Think of it that way.

Everything costs money in this business
Mx. Remy Ann David

studio101nola Mon, 08/01/2011 - 09:15

Wait a sec...efficiency, If the amp is stable at 4 to 16 ohms and the speakers are also stable at 4 or 8 or 16 ohms and I am only using one set of speakers at a time, then why on earth can't I use a switch.

As far as sensitivity...I have an Ashly Protea system (128 programmable presets) with gain, HPF, LPF ,31 ban EQ, compressor, limiter....Every thing I could ever need to adjust the signal to the limitations of the speaker. Every good sound person I know runs there amps at full and does adjustments at there crossover or what ever gear precedes the amp.

I think you are confused...the Niles does more than one speaker at a time but that is a feature that is cool but I don't need it to do that, mostly because I want clean signal...not a active system that would "color" my sound.

Boswell Mon, 08/01/2011 - 11:10

That Audioplex unit would switch the speakers, but would not allow you to set the different levels needed to match the sensitivity of each set of speakers. You would have to switch then adjust the amplifier volume control each time. If you can put up with that, then it's a cheap way to achieve a result, but not one that's in line with any aspirations of higher audio quality standards.

Boswell Tue, 08/02/2011 - 02:34

GZsound, post: 374694 wrote: There are units made to do exactly what you want. Mackie Big Knob and Presonus makes one too.

I run four sets of speakers with my Mackie Big Knob and it works just fine.

Those units are designed for active monitors and do not do exactly what the OP wants. In his opening post he says "I want to switch between three or four speakers using only one amp", so he needs to switch at the speaker level, not at the amplifer inputs.

GZsound Tue, 08/02/2011 - 22:41

Boswell, post: 374696 wrote: Those units are designed for active monitors and do not do exactly what the OP wants. In his opening post he says "I want to switch between three or four speakers using only one amp", so he needs to switch at the speaker level, not at the amplifer inputs.

Ahh...good point. I missed that.

RemyRAD Tue, 08/02/2011 - 23:25

Here's what you don't understand about your request. Amplifiers produce X. number of watts into 4 through 16 ohms. The power in which it produces various at the different impedances. Generally producing more power at 4 ohms and less power at 16 ohms. Then there is speaker efficiency ratings. This has nothing to do with what power levels they are rated at. It has to do with how many DB they produce with a fixed power input such as 1 W. Some speakers will produce more sound than others. Others produce less sound. So if you're switching between speakers, your levels will be jumping up and down all over the place. There is no nice way to do this except through a specialized speaker switching system that includes numerous high-powered resisters to try to even out differences in speaker efficiency levels. And if you use one of those goofy speaker switches, you're actually affecting the way the amplifier sounds into that speaker. It's just not smart. Professionals don't do this. That's why we use either powered monitors or separate amplifiers dedicated to specific speakers with a controller such as many of these devices such as the Mackie and others. But those are designed to feed separate amplifiers & powered monitors and are low-level line output devices not power amplifiers.

Wasn't that easy now?
Mx. Remy Ann David