I've got something open for debate here. I'm doing a side job (normally I do the all the installed AV for a Univiversity) for a friend of my who owns a bike shop. It's a brand new big store, (the old one burned down) and we're putting in a BGM/paging system. The problem is, that as usual, no one thought about AV until the drywall was going up. They brought in a guy to run the wires that were needed but to my taste no where near enough. So I'm stuck with two pair running to the main floor and 2 pair running to the second floor. I'd like to put 8 to 12 small good fidelity speakers (probably PSB) on the 2nd floor and another 6 to eight on the Main floor (smaller floor space). Normally with so little wire I'd just do it all 70V, but normally I'm more concerned about voice intelligibility than music fidelity. So I'm wondering if anyone can see a reason not to simply combine the speakers in a series/parallel configuration to make up a reasonable impedance. I've never done it before, but I can't for the life of me come up with a reason not to.
Cheers
It shouldn't be too hard to find good enough speakers meant to be used in 70V or 100v systems. JBL has quite a few.
http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/General/ProductFamily.aspx?FId=23&MId=2Since an 8 ohm load at 70v is 625W, any amp of at least 625W into 8 ohms should be able to drive a 70V line directly. An amp like the Crest CA12 would let you tap at least 5 speakers per channel at 100W per speaker.
Mac