Could anyone tell me if it is possible to send the speaker output of two or more Beomasters into the same passive speakers, providing that only one is powered up at a time?
I would like to connect 3 or more amplifiers to my fancy loudspeaker switch, then send to the speakers of my choice.

Andy T.

Hi Andy,

Ah, the joys of having too much B&O (is there such a thing?)

The more I think about this the more intriguing it gets, and I think you might have to make your own. Presumably you would prefer to avoid ending up with something that looked like an olde-world telephone exchange, or a first generation Moog synth.

The output stage - taking the signal to speakers of choice - is a done deal. There are umpteen speaker switches on the market to do that job, the slightly better ones ensuring that whatever you select there will always be a safe impedance presented to the amp. It's the input stage where things get interesting.

A plain AUX line-level switch feeding into the speaker switch would work, and pass back the safe impedance to the live amp. Another amp could be safely powered up, too, which I think should be a consideration. The downside of that would be a less than elegant daisychain of mismatched boxes and an array of switches.

Automatic switching of the input according to which amp is powered up would be a possibility - certainly I've seen SCART switches that do this. No manual switches to flick means that part could be hidden out of sight so an element of elegance returns. I do not know how protected the amps would be, however, if more than one was powered by accident. Nor do I know how an automatic switch would cope with completely off-spec signal levels.

I think I would opt for buying a SCART switch, taking it to bits and checking the circuitry, modifying as needed and changing the sockets to speaker ones, then keeping the result hidden away while it feeds a standard speaker switch. There are probably far better options.

Cheers, Steve

Hi Steve, and thank you so much for taking the time to think about this.
A while ago, I bought a rare B&O item, a remote operated speaker switch.
Basicaly, it has three inputs, left passive, right passive and powerlink.
It has 24 outputs. 8 left passive, 8 right passive and 8 powerlink.
You change between any of eight sets of speakers (labs or voxes) by pressing Shift/phono and a number. it has its own sensor which only responds to that command. (Volume etc works as normal through the beomasters own sensor)
Marvelous gismo and, I think, quite rare.

This is it's dedicated IR sensor.

And this is my present set up, but will be expanding.

What I would like to do, is to connect the 5000 amp and the passives from the 7000 to the speaker switch (and later some more Beomasters).
Then I will connect the Beovox 5000+cubes, the S120s, some S45s and some Redlines (and maybe more later) to the switch.
I envisage a screen on my Beo5 showing just Beomasters, and on each BM a screen showing just Beovoxes (Labs later maybe, I need to keep my Pentas and 8000s connected to my Avant for now)
Using Lutron, Lintronic, LC2s or some other remote operated power switch, I could switch on any individual BM and then chose any speaker, all with Beo5.
All that worries me is that  the output from one BM would feed into the output of the dormant ones, and wreck them.

"Why do I want to do this?" I hear you ask.  Sorry, I've no idea yet! Perhaps I'll end up in a magalogue.

Jandyt:

Hi Steve, and thank you so much for taking the time to think about this.
A while ago, I bought a rare B&O item, a remote operated speaker switch.
Basicaly, it has three inputs, left passive, right passive and powerlink.
It has 24 outputs. 8 left passive, 8 right passive and 8 powerlink.
You change between any of eight sets of speakers (labs or voxes) by pressing Shift/phono and a number. it has its own sensor which only responds to that command. (Volume etc works as normal through the beomasters own sensor)
Marvelous gismo and, I think, quite rare.

Good grief!   I guess that takes care of the speaker end of things!

Cheers, Steve 

Jandyt:

And this is my present set up, but will be expanding.

Oooh - there's some really nice stuff! 

Jandyt:

What I would like to do, is to connect the 5000 amp and the passives from the 7000 to the speaker switch (and later some more Beomasters).
Then I will connect the Beovox 5000+cubes, the S120s, some S45s and some Redlines (and maybe more later) to the switch.
I envisage a screen on my Beo5 showing just Beomasters, and on each BM a screen showing just Beovoxes (Labs later maybe, I need to keep my Pentas and 8000s connected to my Avant for now)
Using Lutron, Lintronic, LC2s or some other remote operated power switch, I could switch on any individual BM and then chose any speaker, all with Beo5.
All that worries me is that  the output from one BM would feed into the output of the dormant ones, and wreck them.

"Why do I want to do this?" I hear you ask.  Sorry, I've no idea yet! Perhaps I'll end up in a magalogue.

Agreed that protecting the other Beomasters is a must. Actually it never occurred to me to question why you would want to do it, seemed perfectly normal - must be a B&O thing.

You'll be needing a grown-up version of one of these then.

Just had a session on Google - lots of stuff came close, no cigars though.

Cheers, Steve