Hooking up multiple pairs of speakers

[dmonies]

Hello, I am unsure if this is in the correct section, or if this forum would be able to help me with this issue.

I have a distributed audio system in my house that I installed a few years ago with 11 zones in it (22 speakers total). Well, needless to say, CH 1 on my amp has bit the dust (American Audio v2000plus). And I have a feeling its becuase im overloading the heck out of it.

Each speaker is 8ohm ~40watt RMS, and currently hooked up in a parallel. Which Im assuming is dropping the resistance so much (.73 ohms) on each channel it is just burning up the amp. But, if hooked up in a series (on each channel) it would come out to 88 ohms (per channel), which seems like there would be such a drop in power that the amp would not be able to even move the speakers. Would putting that much resistance on the amplifier possibly do just as much damage as almost inexistant resistance?

Basically, I know its possible to hook up to 32 zones to a single stereo amplifier (according to leviton) source, but how in the world is it done?

another note: each zone (11) is controlled by a volume controller with impedance matching, dont know if this makes a difference.

[GZsound]

You need a distribution amplifier. A typical stereo amplifier is not designed to drive multiple speakers.

Check out www.bhproaudio.com or www.bsw.com and search for distribution amplifiers.

Thats how department stores, etc. with multiple speakers do it. You can also have individual volume control.

Two eight ohm speakers in parallel create a four ohm load. In series they create a 16 ohm load.

I have created a series/parallel box that allows up to 8 eight ohm speakers to be connected to a stereo amp and provide an eight ohm load on each amplifier section.