That's an interesting thought. I don't have any flexibility on the location of the components. Equestrian concerns trump audio concerns, if you know what I mean.

Does running each side in series mean that I only have one pair of wires for each side? I should read up on that.

Speaking of sides, there really is no need for stereo in this application. A mono system with all four speakers all putting out the same thing would probably be just as good. The only reason I have been thinking in terms of left and right is that is the way my hand-me-down amplifier works. Is there a simple way of playing stereo sources such as CDs and playing them in mono? Any disadvantage to doing something like that in this application?