Connecting speakers to a receiver?

Question

I know of a building that has a sound system, with over 30 speakers on the ceiling. In the sound system, there are many speaker cables, but one going into the receiver. How could there be so many speaker cables, but only one or two going into the receiver? What device is used to do that? Also, there were microphone jacks in the wall, with about 4 going into one input. How do they set it up that way?

Answer 1

It's called an amplifier.  They have somewhere as no regular receiver could deliver enough power to provide to 30 speaker.  Simple rule of thumb, when you see a 1000 wat system, this means it delivers 1000 watts total to all speaker outputs.  Two speaker outputs means 500 watts each. Place 10 inline speakers in each of two outputs = 20 speakers and take the 1000 watts and devide by 20.  This means that each speaker will only receive 15 watts of power. If each speaker was rated for 300 watts, they would receive 15 watts each to power an audio signal.  This is why amplfiers are used.

Answer 2

The amp puts out 70 volts RMS and each speaker should have a transformer in it. The mics should not be hooked up like that but it will work. You should get a amp from crown.http://www.crownaudio.com/ca.htm

Answer 3

Sounds like amature wiring.  The speaker cables are probably spliced together before reaching the speakers.

The microphone jacks all being connected to one input will work, but the quality will be lacking if more than one microphone is used at a time.

With over 30 speakers in the ceiling all in the same set of outputs, there is likely to be impedance problems, which can result in fuses being blown if the wrong amplifier is used.

Its probably not worth fixing if it's broken.  I would reccomend consulting a professional about replacing the system.  Equipment for a large system like that is not going to be available at consumer electronics stores.

Answer 4

It's all professional equipment what you need is a audio distribution system the sad part is that it cost about 1,000 to 4,000 thousand dollars the other part is every speaker is connected into a series for example parallel connection is when you connect 2 speakers together let say if the speakers where 8 ohms which is the standard for in wall speakers if connected parallel it becomes 4 ohms but if connect in a series it will be stable enough to handle a distribution system, high power amp,or a receiver and by connecting it this way will allow for you to connect it with two speaker cables.personally you got to do a lot of home work on this if you really want to get serious with electronics because it's very complicated, it needs to be down to a science and a skill to achieve a goal.