The highlighted section is your recommendation against something. This is from Post 7:


"Do A rather than B" has two sections: a recommendation to do A and a recommendation to NOT do B. That second part is a recommendation against.

Oddly, in Post 12 you recommend:

Do you know anything about Dayton amplifiers? If not, look at my comments, then look into how the Dayton multi-zone amps work.

Choosing 'rather than' instead of considering the whole comment is why you don't understand what I wrote.

I wrote my original comment while remembering the same issue in a system I installed, using one of the Dayton multi-zone amps. If I had been able to use a 12V trigger, I would, but since the user powers the system on arrival and shuts it off when she leaves, the problem ended. Upon considering the fact that this thread is about a takeover, I added the comment in post 12.

Are you finished dissecting language and thinking about addressing the problem in this thread?

I was reading through the skimpy MA1260 manual. The 15 minute turn-off delay mentioned in Post 1, suggests that an audio input, perhaps a turn-on thump, triggered the unit, then the input fell below the trigger threshold and timed out in 15 minutes. You might be able to work around this by fussing with the input levels on both the amplifier and the source.

Another approach might be to install an external audio to 12V trigger gadget.

I'm curious how the individual channels are triggered. One possibility is that the inputs are summed and sent to the audio trigger. If any input is active, all channels could become active. This could result in amplifier output noise in the speakers for currently inactive rooms. Another possibility is that each channel has a separate audio trigger and the main power light will be ON if any channel is active.

If the main trigger control is set to ON, are all of the amplifiers active (noise at the speaker output) or are the individual amplifiers still waiting for an audio trigger?

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The channels can be turned on at one time by setting all of the input switches to Bus 1, Bus 2 or Line In and using only that set of input jacks. I have never heard one of these amps thump when it turns on, but if the other equipment was turned on when this was already powered up, I could see how an audible thump could occur. I doubt it would become an ongoing problem, though.

If the trigger switch is set for input signal sensing, yes- all channels will respond because the amp only has one switch for this purpose. There should be no reaction from channels when the switch is set to Auto when they're all set to use a different input e.g., using Bus 1 for one area and Bus 2 or Line In for another. If you had six zones and a separate source feeding the Line In for its channels, none of the other zones will turn on as long as it's operating properly.

While I prefer using a trigger or the power switch to turn these on, I have used the Auto setting on occasion and it works well as long as there are no long pauses and extremely quiet sections in the source.

I haven't heard noise at the speakers when no input signal was present. All of the Dayton multi-zone amps I have used are still working years after installation- one has been in use since 2011 and I wouldn't hesitate to use these again. I used an Episode amp (only needed a total of 8 channels) and the rear configuration is the same as this- other brands look extremely similar, although some use a toroidal power transformer.

One thought I had was that, if a source had a thump at turn-on, the amp would start-up, but if the signal level was too low, the amp would then shut down. In this scenario it might be helpful to increase the source level and lower the amp channel level adjust.

It will/should only turn off if the signal level is too low.

I have posted about a fitness facility where I installed a system- it has the Dayton MA-1240 with four channels bridged to two used for the Yoga Studio and the rest are each driving one speaker in the ceiling of the main room, which is about 35' wide x 65' long x 14' high. The speakers are arranged as pairs between the roof trusses and, conveniently, there are three of them, so it created four spaces. I'm driving the four zones independently from an Art HeadAmp, which has four 1/4" TRS and four 1/8" TRS output jacks and each has its own level control. Since the system was done on a tight budget, I used a cheap Rolls mixer for the main room and another for the Yoga room.

The head amp allows balancing the level from each pair and they use an iPad as the source. The low audio level of some music did cause the Auto sense to go to sleep if the Head Amp's level controls were set very low, so it was decided that the amp would be turned on manually, since she was doing that already.

I like the Auto setting when the average level is higher, but not if someone can or needs to reduce the level. When that's happening, I use the power switch or 12V trigger and never have a problem.

If something else in the system has a 12V trigger output, I would recommend using it.