Poor setup in house

[Shane Hage]

Hi everyone. I joined this forum because I need some help.

My wife & I bought a house a few years ago. The house has 6 in-ceiling speakers (8 ohm Realistic [from RadioShack]) that are wired together.

I can't see how these are wired together because there is no access to the area in the house except for ripping off the roof or cutting a bunch holes in the ceiling.

Using an Ohm meter, I received a reading of 1.1 ohms. Assuming these 6 speakers were connected in a parallel circuit, that would result total of 8 ohm/6 speakers = 4/3 = 1.333 ohm. So, I think the reading matches with the theoretical configuration.

I have a 100W x 2 Insignia NS-R2000 receiver that States Channel A OR B, minimum 8 ohm; Channel A+B minimum 16 ohm.

With that configuration I have two concerns.

First, and most important, is that I don't want to blow out my receiver. I had one blow out when I turned the volume up beyond half...I assume it happened as a result of the parallel configuration. I was thinking of using a little project box to put 8 to 16 ohms resistor in series to throttle the power. Is that a good option? Does anyone have other suggestions?

Second, with only 1 set of speaker wire coming out of the ceiling for these speakers I think I can't hear songs that need left/right sound. Besides hooking up new speakers or ripping into my house to rewire these speakers, does anyone have suggestions?

I really appreciate the assistance!

 

[smorizio]

The speakers should drop out of the ceiling with the removal of a few screws. Then with a wire snake you shoul be Able to pull a new wire run back to the amp.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Whoever wired the speakers had no idea of what they were doing. You are stuck with mono sound and no way to control the volume of each room let alone the source that is playing. If your receiver
has a mono button use it. If not you can get an Audioplex Monomixer which will make the signal mono so you hear both channels.
If you wire an 6-8 ohm 100w non inductive resistor in series with the plus lead this will protect the receiver from the low impedance load. You can also put a 25 or 75v step down transformer at each speaker and a 25 or 75v step up transformer at the amp. This is the way commercial jobs are done.