2 quad amps/ 4 speakers switch

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boson

Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2018
Messages
12
Location
france
Hi everyone,
I have 2 amps one a beautiful analog Sansui QRX 6001 and the other a great digital 7.1 Pioneer VSX-920-K: the 1st I use with my beloved turntable and quad vinyls and other inputs like a tape deck and Sony 850PS DAV video8 deck (for music only).
The digital amp I use with my Pioneer 440 blu-ray deck for blu-ray audio, SACD, and DVD-A discs as well as the tons of quad & multi channel files I have on hard disks.... I only use 4 channels as I am not mad on intrusive subwoofer bass and rarely listen to TV through my Pioneer amp (except music programs) so don't need the center channel either
My problem is I only have 4 speakers and no room to put any additional ones in my small home so I look for a switcher that would let me input the 4 channels of both my amps and select between one of them to power the speakers. I couldn't find anything on the net even after extensive search, does any one know where to buy one or clues on how to solve the problem? (I don't see any except build one which I am totally incapable of doing).
Any advice welcome, thanks
 
 
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Yes, there are lots of stereo amp-speaker selectors available so you would need two of these SOLUPEAK-P2 units from Amazon for example-

SW.JPG


See AMAZON UK
They are a little pricey but look to be reasonably well made with decent connectors.
Chances they are all made in China though!
 
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Thank you guys for all the tips, links & advice, it got me all thinking: all the suggestions you sent were for a 2 amps LINE LEVEL in /4 speakers out, but what I need is a unit with 2 x 4 speakers in (from each of the 2 amps) and 1 x 4 speakers out, so I figured the best way would be to buy a small DAC unit (like that would take the Toslink or HDMI straight out of my Blu-ray deck and HDD and input the RCA analogs outs into my Sansui QRX et voila! no more need for the digital amp! remains to hear the sound quality & see the workmanship of those little units, all Chinese made...!
The alternative is seeing that I can flog off the Pioneer VSX-920 anyway for around 100/120 Bikkie$ I could use this money to find a high quality second hand 5.1 digital amp with 5 or 6 or 7 channels ins and outs and bingo! in 10 minutes flat I found on the net a Cambridge Audio Azur 540R for 140$ & a Denon AVR 1905 for 100$ both of which have just that and probably a built in DAC 100 times better than the little chinese stand alone units I can just feed the 4 analog pre outs into the tape ins of the Sansui, it makes me run the digital unit really just as a DAC/pre-amp but it means listening to my digital sources through the beautiful, round, warm & vintage sound of my Sansui a definite plus I rekon. What do you think is the best idea stand alone cheapo DAC or extra 5.1 amp? both the ARCAM & the DENON have good reviews on the net does anyone know about them or own one an could give us a feedback
Cheers
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ARCAM Azur 540 R.jpg
DENON AVR1905.jpg
 
Professional quality speaker and amp input switchers are hideously expensive. $2000 territory. As soon as you get into balanced connections and speaker power rated contacts the prices are high. Otherwise you only find stuff with rca jacks like some of the above mentioned. I ended up building a speaker/amp switcher 20 years ago. I used relay switches rated for 250V 10A switched contacts. Figured that would be good solid connections for amp power and the line level connections would be golden. I needed to switch things around to cover everything with 6 channels of amplifiers and let me switch between 3 stereo pairs of speakers or a surround array and from two stereo sources and two 5.1 sources. Point to point wiring with braid and foil shielded 22awg cables for the input connections. All balanced. 16awg for the speaker power connections. That was an adventure and a half to wire as I remember.

Flash forward a decade. I wanted to switch between multiple headphone feeds. I had an audio interface with some spare analog line outputs. I used the individual outputs. Assigned them in a DAW. Made hot key assignments to toggle them on off. Six function keys on my keyboard toggle 5 headphone mixes and a 6th for the control room speakers on/off. Just mouse clicking to create that setup. Audio interfaces with multiple analog outputs are readily affordable now. I still use the switcher all the time because it's right there. But it would be 100% obsolete today if I was starting over. So choose your adventure wisely nowadays!
 
boson said:
Thank you guys for all the tips, links & advice, it got me all thinking: all the suggestions you sent were for a 2 amps LINE LEVEL in /4 speakers out, but what I need is a unit with 2 x 4 speakers in (from each of the 2 amps) and 1 x 4 speakers out
Click to expand...

No, the thing I posted was, as you requested, a speaker switch for multiple amps (it has nothing to do with line level signals, which is why it has no RCA connectors only speaker binding posts!).
I'm afraid I'm completely lost as to what you are really trying to achieve with your latest scheme - but it sounds horribly complicated.
 
Sorry, you are right, I looked firstly at the suggestions gene_stl made which all require line level preamp outputs which the Pioneer VXS 920 doesn't have, your suggestion seems to be the right and easy way, i'll look it up on Amazon or elsewhere on the net
Thanks
 
boson said:
Sorry, you are right, I looked firstly at the suggestions gene_stl made which all require line level preamp outputs which the Pioneer VXS 920 doesn't have, your suggestion seems to be the right and easy way, i'll look it up on Amazon or elsewhere on the net
Thanks
Click to expand...
Actually I've just looked at all of @gene_stl 's suggestions and they are also all pure speaker level switches as you wanted, you must be mis-reading something!
 
Soundfield said:
Actually I've just looked at all of @gene_stl 's suggestions and they are also all pure speaker level switches as you wanted, you must be mis-reading something!
Click to expand...

possibly too much info & net search = brain overload! anyway problem solved, i am grateful to all who bothered to help me out of my misery
cheers
 
boson said:
Hi everyone,
I have 2 amps one a beautiful analog Sansui QRX 6001 and the other a great digital 7.1 Pioneer VSX-920-K: the 1st I use with my beloved turntable and quad vinyls and other inputs like a tape deck and Sony 850PS DAV video8 deck (for music only).
The digital amp I use with my Pioneer 440 blu-ray deck for blu-ray audio, SACD, and DVD-A discs as well as the tons of quad & multi channel files I have on hard disks.... I only use 4 channels as I am not mad on intrusive subwoofer bass and rarely listen to TV through my Pioneer amp (except music programs) so don't need the center channel either
My problem is I only have 4 speakers and no room to put any additional ones in my small home so I look for a switcher that would let me input the 4 channels of both my amps and select between one of them to power the speakers. I couldn't find anything on the net even after extensive search, does any one know where to buy one or clues on how to solve the problem? (I don't see any except build one which I am totally incapable of doing).
Any advice welcome, thanks
Click to expand...
Most such switches are stereo only and they are meant to switch multiple sets of speakers rather than multiple amps to one set of speakers. You could use two such switches for quad, just that the labelling will be backwards.
Sad that you are unable to build yourself one. Myself I started as a DIYer to save money that I didn't have at the time and because of my interest in electronics. Since then I've built many projects mostly because what I wanted or needed was just not available commercially. Such a switching unit would be very useful, and very easy to build. You just need a two position switch with four or more poles (sections). Optionally you also need some type of jacks (binding posts, screw type terminal strips or spring type speaker connectors), and a bit of wire to connect it all up.
Keep searching, if stereo units are readily available you may eventually stumble upon a multi channel unit as well!
 
Why fool around with cheap Chinese switches that have a short length of life? I would just design up a switch with some high current power 4 pole relay and then appropriate power Banana Jacks and be done with it. Doing things the right way cost some money but then buying a lot of cheap switch boxes will add up over time. The concept of what you are doing is not hard and the implementation should not be that difficult either. But I guess as you said you fixed the problem- just do not switch things while power to speakers are active.
 
skywaveTDR said:
Why fool around with cheap Chinese switches that have a short length of life? I would just design up a switch with some high current power 4 pole relay and then appropriate power Banana Jacks and be done with it. Doing things the right way cost some money but then buying a lot of cheap switch boxes will add up over time. The concept of what you are doing is not hard and the implementation should not be that difficult either. But I guess as you said you fixed the problem- just do not switch things while power to speakers are active.
Click to expand...
I agree but the original poster made it clear that DIY was beyond him. Personally I have a few military grade ceramic switches that I could use instead of a relay, relays require power. The Chinese switch might be cheap but it doesn't look too bad based on the picture.
 
skywaveTDR said:
Why fool around with cheap Chinese switches that have a short length of life? I would just design up a switch with some high current power 4 pole relay and then appropriate power Banana Jacks and be done with it.
Click to expand...

But of course the reality is that unless you go to considerable time and expense in sourcing those components they are highly likely to be Chinese wherever you get them from anyway!
 
par4ken said:
I agree but the original poster made it clear that DIY was beyond him. Personally I have a few military grade ceramic switches that I could use instead of a relay, relays require power. The Chinese switch might be cheap but it doesn't look too bad based on the picture.
Click to expand...
If you have any history of the Chinese made product which to anyone who knows is total garbage it is clear what to do. If he does not want a properly made product then have someone who is competent make one for him. We had those dB25 switches at Moody Radio to switch all the control lines over to the secondary computer. This was used for emergency events. They were so drastically unreliable that they had me the Chief Engineer make a PCB device with socketed relays that did the job with 100% reliability. Yes it cost more but when you want reliable you have to design a thing correctly. At NASA or Aerospace those Chinese switches would never get in the door. Do you want to take a chance of blowing up an amp because some cheap switch does not connect it to the load when it is required to. People sometimes have to learn the hard way and it costs more like this.
 
I am not here to make arguments but to offer technical know-how to help someone who asks. I have many happy customers and clients who ask and get answers. I will not tell the person to use a chinese switch as I already know they only work for a few days and for the current the amp will put through them even less time than that. Just hope his amps are happy driving infinite loads as a open switch is just that no load. A lot of amplifiers do not like to have open loads on their outputs.
 
skywaveTDR said:
I am not here to make arguments but to offer technical know-how to help someone who asks. I have many happy customers and clients who ask and get answers. I will not tell the person to use a chinese switch as I already know they only work for a few days and for the current the amp will put through them even less time than that. Just hope his amps are happy driving infinite loads as a open switch is just that no load. A lot of amplifiers do not like to have open loads on their outputs.
Click to expand...
99.9% of today's consumer electronics comes from China, sad but true.
 
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