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Speaker selector switches...

I live in an old farmhouse with speakers in every room downstairs and a pair in the barn (old Boston Acoustics a700) and they all run off an Adcom amplifier. Right now I'm remodeling the bathroom (10'x14') and have purchased new B&W CDM 1NT's to put in there. The trouble is that I now have 2 zones more than my Adcom GFS3 speaker selector switch can handle. I went to buy a new selector switch and I noticed for the first time that there is a wattage rating, usually 150W or less to them, can't find one that is 200W or above. Any suggestions as to brand or model that is rated for continous play at 200W or above? I have an old McIntosh C26 preamp that I am using for main and remote speaker selection, the main goes to the GFS3 and the remote goes to the big living room speakers.
jimmymaclite
jrinkerptdnet
430 posts
 
Niles makes some models rated at 250watts ... I don't know the exact model numbers however. They are very well made units (generally better than the Adcom).
jimmymaclite OP
7 posts
 
I found the Niles hdl4 and hdl6 which handle 4 and 6 speaker pairs, but it says that your amplifier must be able to handle a 4 ohm load. Isn't that going to make the amp work harder, hotter that sort of thing? What do people do that have big 3 or 400 watt amps? Just not do it? Am I missing somthing?
ehart
215 posts
 
I have been thinking of feeding a dedicated "house" amp (bridged mono) into a "passive resistance network" that will allow me to have all the speakers powered at once. Then I plan to have volume controls (or on/off controls) by each speaker.

While this is not super hi-fi, I expect it to be good enough for kitchen, office, and the like.

Just thought you might want to consider this as an alternative to a speaker selector switch.

I haven't actually done this, but many people in our area have (except in stereo, not mono).

- Eric
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