Can I rig a home theater amp to run in wall speakers?


My friend has an older rotel 5 channel power amp that he used to use with a rotel home theater preamp for a home theater.  Now he has a modern marantz home theater receiver that handles the home theater.  His new house has 8 in wall speakers distributed throughout the house.  He has a sonance speaker distribution box.  I advised him to use the rotel power amp to drive the speakers in the sonance box, using the pre-outs from the Marantz.  The current set up can only make use of 2 channels, due to the 2 pre-outs from the marantz, and thus, 3 of the channels in the Rotel power amp are going unused.  I'd prefer to put one pair of in walls at least on its own channels in the rotel, and minimize the quantity of speakers in the sonance box.

any thoughts?
marktomaras
Hi Mark,

Happy to try and help. Retired now but worked in the A/V industry many years with experience in HT and distributed audio. I have some ideas but need more info to see if there is a way to use what he has and make it function correctly, safely, and be user friendly.

Do you know if the single speakers are what is called a summing speaker, plays both channels with L&R connection on the single speaker? One way to find out is look at the selector box to see if that position has both channels connected, assuming a 6-way selector box. If it's a 4-way box then he may have L speaker in one location and the R speaker in the other. Model number of the selector box would be great or does it have knobs and switches or just switches and how many, 4 or 6?

Can you get me the model number of the Marantz? Should be close to the name on front, in small print.

I know I'm asking for detailed info, but without it is like shooting at a target blindfolded. Get what you can and we will kept working toward a solution.



OK, with the SS6, I'll assume the single speakers are summing speakers as I described above, and he is using 5 of the push button switches, one for each location, 3 rooms, hallway, and outdoors. When playing multiple locations, which one could use a little more volume?

That is hard to say, though I would guess the outdoor speakers will need more amplifier juice, by nature of them being outside.  

Looks like they may not be summing speakers, he sent a photo and 3 pairs are connected as usual, but one line speaker only is connected to one channel. 

Thank you for the help!  

Outdoor speakers would be my guess as well. On the SS6, 3 positions are connected normal, L&R. Then 2 positions, hallway and kitchen, have only one channel connected. Correct?

I do have a couple of ideas, but really need to know the model number of the Marantz to know it's capabilities.