# Making 2 Sound Systems Work Together



## Guest (Dec 5, 2008)

I'm a bit new... so yeah. But I hope this community can really give me a boost on the project I intend to work on when I get back to college after this Christmas break.

What I'm trying to do here, is simple in theory, but kinda hard in actuality. In the dorms, my room mate has his 200W Yamaha home entertainment get-up, with four satellite speakers and an 8 in. sub. I had brought my 10 in. Jensen Power Station sub and hooked it up with his entertainment system as well. I have three inherited sound systems, all of which are quite older than his. The oldest one, is an old Sony get-up that my parents were going to through away when they got their new digital Panasonic. That one happens to reside in the dorm at the moment, with no real use. Other than the vinyl record player and CD changer, the system components are completely connected together. The Equalizer/Volume Control are connected to the tape player and that's connected to the radio. It's one giant block. Yeah, it's really, really archaic. There's no use in using that with the intentions I have and kinda sits on the side of the room, eroding away slowly with time.

However, I have two more systems at home. I have an Onkyo one that I believe is fairly newer than the Sony one in the dorm. That resides at home, and I inherited it from a neighbor that was moving and couldn't take it with him. It was banged up, kinda, as it sat in his garage surrounded by the saw dust generated by a CNC machine. I had it working at one point, but shortly there after it stopped. I have narrowed down the source of the problem to the amplifier (or so I'm pretty sure) and just haven't quite had the time to fix it or diagnose the actual problem with the amplifier. I believe it has to deal with something on the output of the amplifier... but not the actual inter-workings.

Lastly, I have another brand-less system. Really, it has a brand, it's just that I don't know what it is, as my brother had inherited that from another neighbor... Gosh, it seems like we have a trend... but anyways, he's young, and kind of gave up on making it work and doesn't like the whole idea that it's larger than the newer boom-boxes in Wal-Mart and that it takes up space in his room. So chances are that when I return to my home this coming week, I'll be foolin' around with that ol' thing.

My mission: I want to some how figure a way to make the current, Yamaha, sound system in the dorm work in conjunction with either they Onkyo (if I can fix it) or the one I will get from my brother. Currently the Yamaha is hooked up to the 1080P 40 in. Sony LCD HDTV, and works fine with both the Jensen Power Station and the Yamaha sub, but I want to be able to hook the amplifier of the Yamaha with one of the other systems that I end up bringing back in about a month. I want them to both work to put out the same sound coming from either the HDTV or Playstation (whichever we're using at a given time) and work with the subs and speakers that are there, as well as the speakers that I will also bring back. Chances are, as well, that I will bring the surround sound equalizer from the Onkyo set, and I would like to make that work with both amps and all speakers, instead of just one.

I know what you're thinking, "God , son! Got enough sound in that room?" Frankly, no, we don't. We have fairly large dorms, as they are considered suites by the Campus Living department. My room mate and I are both bass heads, and love the low-end. He's an upright bass performance major, and I used to be a music composition major so I'm sure that you could guess at how much we value music and sheer volume and sound. Also, in the summer, we're moving to a local apartment, so it's best to have all the gear up here and working properly before we move it at the end of next semester, yah know?

Anyways, I'd like to thank in advance for any recommendation or help that any of ya'll could provide. Thanks for your time and effort,

Zach.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Ok, well where do we start....if you have a look at the back of either receiver given the age its very possible that they have what is called a "tape loop" however it wont be labeled as that, most likely "tape in and out" there should be one set of rca connectors for each. You simply connect the tape out of the one receiver (the one your using as the inputs for all your devices) and go into either a spare input or the tape input of the other receiver. Where we get complicated is do you want the volume of the one receiver to control the other? This will not be easy and most likely impossible so you will have to adjust each volume separately.
Does this make sense?


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## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

Arojekt said:


> I want them to both work to put out the same sound coming from either the HDTV or Playstation (whichever we're using at a given time) and work with the subs and speakers that are there, as well as the speakers that I will also bring back.


Maybe I'm missing something ... but why you want to connect both AVR's to TV and playstation??? ... if it is because 



> .... My room mate and I are both bass heads, and love the low-end...


You're better off getting a bigger sub ...:yes:

Are you using a 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 system??? ...Do you watch movies or just TV??? ...What do you want to accomplish using both AVR's and all speakers??? :huh:


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

> My mission: I want to some how figure a way to make the current, Yamaha, sound system in the dorm work in conjunction with either they Onkyo (if I can fix it) or the one I will get from my brother.


Hard to say since you didn't give us any model numbers that we could research, but the receiver or amplifier is basically the "heart" of a system, that everything else connects to. There's really no good way to use two receivers in a system, nor is there any good reason for it. Your best bet will be to use the best components from all your inherited gear and sideline or sell the rest of it. 

Regards,
Wayne


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