Bulk Parallel Speakers ?

Question

In a hypercritical situation i own a home thearter amp that is running at 4 ohms 200w rms over 2 channells and i have 50 speakers that are all 8 ohms and 70w max. Can i run two lots of 10 speakers all in parallel on this amp without doing damage to either the amp or speakers? If no damage is occured how many speakers could be used to still get to around 90db?

Answer 1

If you were to run 10 8Ohm speakers in parallel they would appear as 0.8 Ohms and would definitely stress your amp which could cause it to over heat or blow the speakers because the amp would be pumping out too much wattage.

Best bet would be to run several parallel sets of speakers in series. You could run 4 parallel sets of 3 8Ohm speakers (3 in series) and the result would be a 6 Ohm load.

How loud would depend on the speakers sensitivity and specs.

Answer 2

I think you mean "hypothetical" not "hypercritical".  Hypothetical means that the situation is not real.  Hypercritical means that it is VERY real and VERY important to get the answer right (like people would die if the answer was wrong).

  Why are you asking this?  Is it on a test?  Either way...in theory your hookup might work and might even produce 90dB.

When you have to run many speakers from one amp, you go to a commercial 70 volt system.  You will need a 70 volt amp and 70 volt speakers.  These types of systems are very common in large buildings.

Answer 3

Ummm.... don't do this.  You're trying to run 20 speakers out of an amp built for two speakers, on top of that they are speakers with higher impedance that what the amp is rated for.  This is a terrible idea, so go buy a few more amps.

You wouldn't have enough power to fire those speakers up anyway.