Hi All
I wanted to ask you a question about hooking up two sets of speaker cables from separate amps to my T1s.

Moderator, I assume you will be able to help me here big time.

The purpose of this is to run a separate five channel Emotiva amp for my home theatre and my Bel Canto monoblocks for my two channel music.

The idea here is to have my spade connectors connected to my Monoblocks and T1s at all times and to turn off the monoblocks at the wall when using home theatre Emotiva set up through a banana connection. The reasoning for this is I want to buy a DAC that won't allow bypass, and I already have a complicated setup

Do I want to ask if there is a danger in doing this? The TV is used every day by my girlfriend, and my music listening is only done on the weekend as I don't have time. My idea is to have both speaker cables connected during the week but to turn off my monoblocks on the wall during the week. This will also help save me a lot of power as my power bill has gone up dramatically since I have installed these monoblocks. However, the power saving is a secondary consideration.

If I then wanted to listen to music on the weekend, my idea is I would physically disconnect the home theatre banana speaker cables from the T1s and then turn on my monoblocks with the connected spades. Ideally, I don't want to ever unplug the spades fro the T1s as the wires themselves are quite fiddly, so I want to keep them in at all times. Swapping out bananas are easy once a week, but the spades need to remain.

I have a few questions
1. Am I mad and this is this dangerous for my amps and speakers?
2. Is it ok to leave the spades in without any power while I'm running HT with banana wires through my HT amp?
3. If I accidentally push power to both amps connected to the T1s what is the danger here? Firstly it will be hard to do this as I physically have to turn on the monos at the wall first, secondly, there won't be a situation where I will be sending movies and music to the speakers at the same time even with it powered.

I believe the issue will arise if I send power from two amps while playing music/content from two sources at the same time. This is the worst case scenario but what would happen here if I did that?



Logically I would think the way I initially proposed to do it should be ok, as I will turn off power (at the wall) to my monos while I am using HT during the week, so the spades will have no power and will be just connected idly to the T1s. I just need to know if this itself is safe. If the worse case I don't disconnect power to my monos, will this cause damage?

I have three options
a) physically disconnect the spades when connecting my bananas and vice versa (I don't want to do this at all)
b) Keep both connected while running HT with no power to my spades through my monos, while physically disconnecting bananas before powering back the monos into my spades for music (this is my ideal solution.)
c) Keep both connected and powered (logically I think here is where I would run into danger, esepcilly If I play both sources at the same time)

Please advise here and what you think. I have exhausted all other options with my particular set up. I am currently using HT bypass successfully, so I understand the concept, it's just the extra gear I am considering won't play nicely with my convoluted setup so this is my suggested solution.

Hey Steveo, great questions. Go for it Dude, and tell us what happens!!!!
You can come stay with me if you burn your place down!!! Ha ha
Seriously, the only potential for damage I can see is that power going from your Emo, back flushing through your spades/speaker wires to the Bel Cantos. Even with them powered down, it COULD cause some problem, probably not, but what do I know?????
Would I do it? No, not with what the BCs cost, but then again, I would be using them for home theater. They would be my front L and R amps powering the TOnes at all times! (Life is too short for settling for second best amps when it comes to home theater.)
But that is me.
Let us know what you decide. Hopefully Moderator Dude will chime in with wisdom from above and then we will KNOW.
Happy listening,
God Bless,
Wayne

Don't do that ... you will likely damage the amp that's on, or maybe even both of the connected amplifiers.

I agree with the others. In my situation, I have cables from my HT receiver and others from my 2 channel amp. I use bananas on both and switch out at the speaker. I would not risk the way you suggest.