New member - need help with amp question

[StevieS]

Hoping one of you audio experts can help. Here is my situation. I have an apartment with 4 pairs of speakers (flush mounted in-ceiling) in various rooms. I was looking for a simple solution to allow me to use my iphone, and airplay, to play music in the apartment over one or all of the zones. I found a potential solution from Griffin Technologies - it's essentially a small amp that is connected to an Apple airport express - you then pair your iphone with the airport express, music streams to the amp and to your speakers. In this case I have the output from the small amp (20 watts per channel) feeding into a passive 4-zone speaker selector. Now the problem - while I could connect, I kept getting dropouts with the sound - as if the music was being interrupted. After isolating the problem to the small amp, I realize that (a) the amp is not strong enough to power more than one set of speakers at a time without turning down the volume so low that its unusable; and (b) the speaker selector, even with the switches of 3 of the 4 zones turned off, must still draw more power from the amp than it can put out - so I still get the dropouts. When I connect one set of speakers to the small amp, it works fine. The speakers all have minimum power requirements of 10 watts per channel.

So.....the standard response would be "get a more powerful amp" - but in this case, I don't want to move away from the Griffin Twenty, as it works beautifully with my iphone/ipad. So I wondered if I could buy another amp, and connect it between the Griffin Twenty (the 20 watt amp) and the speaker selector, so that the power is boosted. Will this work? I realize I will lose some fidelity, but frankly I'm not focused as much on that as ease of use. Hope someone can help - I am not an audio expert.

S

[JoeE SP9]

No! There is no such thing as a "booster" amp like there used to be for car audio. Your only real solution is a more powerful amplifier.

There is no reason an Airport Express can't drive a different and more powerful amplifier.

[StevieS]

No! There is no such thing as a "booster" amp like there used to be for car audio. Your only real solution is a more powerful amplifier.

There is no reason an Airport Express can't drive a different and more powerful amplifier.

Thanks for the reply. I think I can do what I suggested by using a lineout converter between the Griffin and a more powerful amp - but your suggestion seems to make sense and is simpler. I had assumed that the Griffin Twenty was somehow special in taking a signal from the airport express - but if I just get a toslink cable with a miniplug on one end (to go into the airport express), that should work fine. I feel stupid for not thinking of that - thanks for the advice!

[Wingman]

whats your thoughts on blutooth mine works great works far never drops out