Hi, I'm a Axiom owner for a couple years ...
VP100
QS8
M40 (whatta sale!)
M3Ti

Anyway, I'm going to do some wiring in my house and I wanted to put a couples lines from 2 different amps into my M40's. Both lines should never be active at the same time ... but I want to know in case of the inevitable accident when 2 amps (denon, yamaho) are powering my M40's, will that be a problem?

TIA!

Jim

I wouldn't do this even if you were sure that both amps would never be active at the same time. It seems pretty likely that the powered-off amp would present enough of a load that it would impact the sound.

Can you switch at line level instead, eg. run a line level cable from the pre-out (or something) of one amp to an aux in on the other amp and always use the same amp to drive the 40s ?

Alternatively, get a cheap switching box.

We've kind of danced around this before, and I think the conclusion was that it's likely to damage one or both of the amplifiers.

I have nothing to add...except:

Welcome to the forum, and; Bless you, for having M40s.
Rich.

For clarity, do you agree we concluded that connecting the outputs of two amplifiers to one set of speakers might damage one or both amplifiers, not the line-level solution I proposed ?

>>Welcome to the forum, and; Bless you, for having M40s

Hey, I own M40s and *I* never got blessed

M40s!!!

Rich, I want my blessing too!

Yeah, I was referring to his solution, not yours.

Sorry for the delay....I couldn't find my vestiments.

Ok; ready?

"A blessing to all Y'all who have M40s and M50s.....shucks; and even M3s" From (Grand)Father Rich.

Now go and sin no more by listening to.......nah; M2s, M22s, M60s and M80s are no longer evil, you have my audio absolution for all past transgressions!

Rich.

Is it ok if I have a non-Axiom sub?

Thanks for the replies. I love my 40's ... loved my 3ti's as well but the 40's plus my HSU sub and it's heaven. I'm still amazed sometimes when I sit and listen to some great sources. Bliss.

I'm also thinking of doing this:

Think Geek Wireless T-Amp

I'm not as concerned with the perfection of the sound sound since it'll be mostly ambient music in this setting (pandora.com coupled with slimbox).

Thanks for the warnings on the speaker wiring. I'm kicking around different ways of doing things and that popped into my head. But I also can run line-level into the receiver into that room and amp it instead. HOwever, I am leaning towards the wireless solution on thinkgeek.

The bottom line is how are the two amplifiers protected??? It could be that there would be no problem and, on the other hand, you could have smoke. In any case, the unused amp would provide a parallel load for the operational amp.

My bottom line is that I would NOT do what you are suggesting. I just don't think that the risk of an accident is worth it.

Just one man's opinion.

And a second man's opinion.

Jim, welcome. Reinforcing the previous replies, note that it doesn't matter if both amplifiers are "active" simultaneously. The connection is equivalent to a "Y" from the active amplifier, driving into both the speaker and the other amplifier(even if it's off), damaging the inactive amplifier. A switching device to completely isolate the two amplifiers would be necessary.

I was in the same situation as you. If both of your amps are solid state, and not tube, then I think the solution is getting a speaker selector. Most of them I believe can work backwards as a source selector for one pair of speakers. Check out this post for a previous discussion on it here