How many Beolabs can you daisy chain

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Howzit Posted: Tue, Aug 7 2018 12:20 AM

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Iv tried searching, and no mention of it in the manuals, but i have what maybe a bit of an odd question;

Iv noticed that a lot of people use a Y splitter for connection Beolab 8000s, if not coming out as separate channels from a source, or Beolab subwoofer.

Most of the rest of the Beolab speakers have two PL sockets, allowing for daisy chaining.

My question is; how many speakers in Stereo can you daisy chain? Is it theoretically an indefinite amount, just choosing L or R channel as you go along, or is there a limitation to daisy chaining?

Secondly, how many times can you Y split (not daisy chain) a PL line, effectively daisy chaining?

(And a bit of fun on the side, and out of curiosity, who has a large number of daisy chained speakers around here?)

Chris

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Steve at Sounds Heavenly replied on Tue, Aug 7 2018 7:46 AM

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Hi Chris,

I don't think there is a definitive answer, someone at B&O did mention 16 speakers as the practical limit to me years ago (but I haven't tested this).  Cable length would also affect this.  In practice, you can certainly use 8 speakers together on a stereo output without any loss of volume or sound quality, I know of several customers who have setups like this in larger rooms.

With decent cabling, you can have as many Y splitters as you wish without any issues, although I would suggest keeping the total cable length to the furthest speakers below 50 metres as a maximum.  Y splitters can help to reduce signal loss in very large setups like this, by reducing the length of the longest part of the daisy-chain.

I would be interested to hear in anyone has more than 8 Beolab speakers connected to a single stereo system?

Kind regards, Steve.