Adcom and other companies made passive speaker selector boxes. I have the Adcom. Purists are aghast! They claim it ruins the PRAT!
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I have the Luxman as55. Found it on eBay from a guy about of Japan. It is built like a tank and works perfectly for switching between my 2 amps to a single set of speakers, It works both ways. I believe they have been discontinued. But are not hard to find. Original price was like $1000.00 I paid $360.00 for mine in perfect condition. I would highly recommend, I can’t imagine there is a more well made unit available. |
@georgemunn how is the Lux switcher powered, if at all? Or does it simply sit between the amp and the speaker cables? I'm curious. |
@rpeluso It is not powered it is a simple switch weighing about 8ib. The switching paths are made of something like .9998 percent pure copper. |
I use a NEOHIPO ET30 and it works well. Has a remote to switch between up to 2 amps and 2 sets of speakers. It also has 2 light up meters that you can adjust for the swing sensitivity and color. A poor man’s Mc meters if you will. Got mine on Amazon with free returns but kept mine. I switch between 2 sets of speakers with one amp. |
@georgemunn thank you, mine has shipped from Japan. It will be a fun experience playing with this. I have several sets of loudspeakers that are sitting idle, and I live alone in a big house, so no "WAF" to be concerned with. |
skitzo1 MapleTree Audio Design owner Al Freundorfer, makes very affordable hand built amp/speaker switches using all point to point wiring, "engineering to order". He is more than willing to add upgrades (interior wiring, connectors, etc. I have his 2 amp to 2 speaker switch, but he also builds RCA and XLR switches. Can't find the invoice right now, but I thought his prices were much more than fair. info@mapletreeaudio.com |
When I went over 2 pairs of speakers and wanted to try bi- or even tri-amping with an addition of a sub is when I considered a distribution amp, beyond the disdain of the purists. Now, with 6 discrete amps on a single chassis, each of which can be driven separately or driven by a common input. Each can be switched to mono separately; each can drive 2 pairs of speakers with it's own levels or even discrete delay if desired. Perhaps not SOTA, but 'clean enough' with no real differences between the amps' output qualities...and a common line out if one has to have More.... One can spend the rough equivalent of a decent one in/two out for new, or get a used for substantially less. And each amp had it's own protection circuit if you get too frisky.... ;) But...to each... |
About a year ago, I asked the same question and got most of the same answers. I chased down every one of the suggestions and found that most of the products were no longer being sold, much less supported. The remaining few didn't seem to be audiophile-worthy for my modest system ($19K T+A electronics & Harbeth speakers), so I gave up on the idea and redesigned my entire speaker topology. That worked and it may have been a big PITA at the time, but I'm much happier with having gone that way today. I think if I'd installed one of what I'd consider "good enough for now" boxes, it would always be my weakest link. Yeah, I know, YMMV, but that was my specific experience. PS: @vthokie83 's recommendation for a bespoke solution also sounds like a good idea if SQ is your absolute highest priority. +1 to that! |
