My Sony MEX-1GP installation manual states to use 4 ohm or 8 ohm speakers only and not to attempt to connect the speakers in parallel.
If I only use 8 ohm speakers, is it safe to connect two speakers to one set of terminals in my head unit, so in effect the two 8 ohm speakers will work out to be total 4 ohm equivalent?
I just bought an Onkyo TX-8522 stereo receiver. It says that if I run two sets of speakers simultaneously, they shoud have impedance of 8-16 ohms.
I have two older sets of speakers. Snell, KIIB, which I think are 6 ohms, and Niles OS-5, 4 Ohms. I am worried that I can't run both simultaneously on this receiver. Anybody think I can?
I always ran the two pairs together on my old receiver, a Carter receiver.
should I return the receiver for something else, and what should that be?
One amp can drive many speakers. However, there are two limits to this practice. The first is that you can overheat or damage an amplifier if you drive too low of an impedance to loud listening levels. Avoid loading any amplifier with a lower impedance than recommended. Adding two speakers to one amp output loads that output with half the impedance of one speaker. The second is that with tube amplifiers, which are uncommon in today's common system, it is important that the speaker impedance and the amplifier output impedance be well matched. When driving two or more speakers from one amp output, always wire them in parallel, rather than series. Series connection, while safe in terms of impedance levels, can hurt sound quality by raising the impedance that the speakers themselves see. Also, when different speakers are wired in series, amplifier voltage will divide between the speakers unevenly, because different speakers have different impedance-versus-frequency characteristics. Many amplifiers have connectors for two pairs of speakers. In general, these amplifiers also have a speaker selector switch. Most amplifiers connect speakers in parallel when both are selected, although some less expensive ones will wire the speakers in series. It is common for these amplifiers to require 8 ohm speakers only, because the amplifier is built to drive either 4 or 8 ohms, and two sets of 8 ohm speakers in parallel loads the amplifier like one set of 4 ohm speakers. It is almost always safe to connect one set of 4 ohm speakers to an amplifier with two sets of outputs, provided that you NEVER use the second terminals for any other speakers.
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Let's rephrase the question: Is it ok to drive 2 speakers from
one output channel (one set of binding posts)? So, with an amp
that has 2 output channels, is it ok to hook up 2 speakers to each
channel for a total of 4 speakers? I guess, since the extra
speakers would effectively lower the total resistance, it would be
important to use 8 ohm speakers, right?
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Best to ignore solution #2 and go by the first explanation. 'Guest' has his description of series and parallel the wrong way around. Quote "When you wire more speakers do it in parallel, which means, one speaker will have the positive connected to the amp, and another one the negative, and connect positive and negative together in between the two speakers." This is a description of SERIES connection. Almost everything stated makes no sense because of the reversal of the terms. References to 'bridge' are not explained and are irrevelant to this question. 'bridge' connection of a stereo amp makes it a mono amp of higher power. The term 'resistance' is not correct when describing speakers and amps. The term is 'impedance' Resistance is only a guide to speaker impedance - an 8ohm speaker might have say 6ohm resistance. You can't measure amp output impedance at all with an ohm meter.
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Solution #6
posted on Jun 22, 2007
Guest
Rank: Apprentice Rating: 0%, 0 votes
okay here it is in simpler terms. Find out what the resistance of the speaker is, and also the amp. When you wire more speakers do it in parallel, which means, one speaker will have the positive connected to the amp, and another one the negative, and connect positive and negative together in between the two speakers. you can run up to 8 ohms of resistance( most amps are stable between 4-8 ohms per channel). Every time you wire in parallel, you double the resistance, every time you run in series, you divide it in half. So if most speakers commonly are 4 ohm, then you can generally connect up to two per channel, so if you have a 2 ohm stable amp, you can wire 2 per channel in parallel, but since the resistance in total will be 4 ohm, (because you have 8 ohms on each channel, therefor dividing it), then you can wire another 4 ohm speaker in the bridge, which will put the resistance at 2 ohm and get all the juice out of the amp. usually a woofer because lets say, you have a 400 watt amp, then it divides into two of 200 watt, one whole 200 for the 4 speakers and a whole 200 for that one in bridge.
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