Speaker hook-up help
 

This isn't a home theater question, but I didn't know where else to put it.

My pool area speaker wire needs to be replaced.

I have ten 8ohm speakers around my pool. I have them "shoe laced" - meaning speaker 1 is left, speaker 2 is right, speaker 3 is left, speaker 4 is right, etc. With this setup all of the speakers are in stereo.

I use a 3,000 watt amp to drive them.

In my current setup each speaker has a wire that runs back to the amp. This is a lot of wire (about 1,000 feet). I then splice all of the wire together, wrap them with a 14 gauge copper wire, and insert into the amp.

Can I simply run two wires (left and right) around the pool, and splice each speaker into the wire, or do I have to run a wire for each speaker?

Thanks for helping.

Re: Speaker hook-up help
 

I am thinking that you will need to have individual wires to power each of them. Lots of wire, but worth it of course.

Re: Speaker hook-up help
 

Nevermind that. Since you are splicing them at the amp, you can splice them anywhere. So, no, you don't need a homerun wire from every speaker. You do need 2 separate runs for the 2 channels.

Re: Speaker hook-up help
 

I'm using just 2 channels

Re: Speaker hook-up help
 

Thanks for the help. You saved me a lot of time, and some $.

Re: Speaker hook-up help
 

This is exactly how PA systems with many speakers are hooked up.

Re: Speaker hook-up help
 

You should consider the impedence load you are putting on your amp and ensure that it is within manufacturers specs. Here is a link that does a pretty good job of explaining series and parralel speaker wiring:

http://www.rocketroberts.com/techart/spk_wire.htm