All watts do not mean the same thing where it comes to different power specs. What will work best will depend on how many speakers you want - for just a pair, the Connect Amp will suffice. But using the receiver may allow you to drive 5 speakers via each channel and if that many are desired, the Connect is the way to go.

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Thanks Kumar. The intention will be to power all 4 of the TIC GS3 speakers. You seem to be confirming my thinking that the receiver + connect might be the way to go. The only real reason for leaning toward option 1 is to not have as much “stuff” hooked up, but also the receiver has a built in 100hz crossover (that I can’t make go any lower) and I’m worried it will eliminate some for the lows from getting to the speakers.

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The Connect Amp could work with 4 speakers too if they are truly 8 ohms and don't misbehave by going much below 8. Or, you could cover for that by installing a passive impedance matching strip between the Connect Amp and the speakers.



Try to place the speakers as close to the listening area as possible even if it means using thicker gauge speaker wires between them and the Connect Amp. That way the amp will not have to operate close to overload conditions when it automatically cuts out to self protect, because having speakers close to the listening space will reduce the need for the amp to run at higher volume levels that speakers located further from the listening areas will dictate, if sound levels in the listening area are to be adequate.



If you must use the receiver, there ought to be a way to wire 4 speakers to channels that do not have the crossover which should be in place only for the subwoofer channel.

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To clarify, note that the Connect Amp can deal with lower impedances if volume levels it has to deliver are not also high at the same time; a combination of both is what leads it to cut out for self protection - the power drawn by the speaker load depends on both factors together.



Hence the efficient way of obtaining adequate sound levels is by having speakers closer to the listening area, instead of using the volume control do the work to compensate for more distant speaker locations. Especially outdoors, where the sound levels drop off much more rapidly with distance compared to indoors.

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I use some similar to setup A. I use some Yamaha speakers and have a speaker switch in between. Never had any issues with power. I actually run a 3rd pair of speakers in the garage from time to time as well. The two main reasons why I went this route is because I already had the connect:amp and because I did not want to have to leave a receiver always on or manually turn it on to use.



That said though, I am considering moving to setup B because I liked to connect to a tv to use with the system from time to time. I can do this with setup A, however, there is a delay causing the audio and video to be out of sync. It's not a big deal for some, but it is for me. That and I don't have a spare receiver I can use for such a setup.

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