I'm having a hard time understanding how impedance works, and am not finding any good sources that answer the questions I have, so I'm hoping that one of you can provide some clarity.
My current AVR is a moderately old Denon AVR1611, with 75w/ch @8ohms. On the back panel, it indicates that the speaker impedance for the fronts, center, and surrounds should be 6 - 16ohms. If I understand this correctly, the 8ohm rating just allows them to specify the watts/channel, and the 6ohm rating indicates that it can run 4 or 8ohm speakers (not sure about this).
The reason why this matters is that I'm trying to buy a new set of speakers, and most of the ones I am gravitating toward (e.g., Airmotiv B1+, Elac DBR62, and Polk R200) are 4 ohm speakers. The Polks are en route, and indicate 4 / 6 / 8 ohm impedance, which I don't understand.
Here are the pieces of advice I've found that I'm having trouble squaring:
My current AVR is a moderately old Denon AVR1611, with 75w/ch @8ohms. On the back panel, it indicates that the speaker impedance for the fronts, center, and surrounds should be 6 - 16ohms. If I understand this correctly, the 8ohm rating just allows them to specify the watts/channel, and the 6ohm rating indicates that it can run 4 or 8ohm speakers (not sure about this).
The reason why this matters is that I'm trying to buy a new set of speakers, and most of the ones I am gravitating toward (e.g., Airmotiv B1+, Elac DBR62, and Polk R200) are 4 ohm speakers. The Polks are en route, and indicate 4 / 6 / 8 ohm impedance, which I don't understand.
Here are the pieces of advice I've found that I'm having trouble squaring:
- I've seen in several reviews of these speakers that, because they're 4 ohm impedance, typical low/mid AVR's will have trouble powering them. I run into this advice a lot.
- Other people say
- it should be fine if only the fronts and maybe center are 4 ohm, you'll just need to turn the volume up (but not too much--I tend to keep the volume moderate anyhow).
- it helps if you have a higher crossover with powered subs, which will take some of the demand off of the fronts (I have two 10" Monoliths, so this wouldn't be a problem).
- if low/mid AVR's couldn't handle these 4 ohm speakers, both the AVR makers and speaker makers would be shooting themselves in the foot, so of course they'll be able to drive those speakers.