all-in-one speakers with new amp

[admin_exported]

I'm trying to make use of speakers from an all-in-one system. Are these normally compatible with most av receivers these days?

Here's what i'm looking to match up:

The front speakers are rated at 160w and 6ohms, centre speakers at 120w and 8ohms and rears at 60w and 8ohms.

AV receiver has a surround sound output of 40w x 5 into 8 ohms.

What do you think?

 

[Anonymous]

any suggestions guys?

 

[Andrew Everard]

Should be fine, even if they won't do full justice to the new electronics.

The ones you have to watch out for are the speakers from some all-in-one systems, which have scarily low impedance figures, and could create problems.

 

[John Duncan]

Should be fine - I'd try it if they were mine, let's put it that way - but you may need to cannibalise cables, as all-in-ones often have proprietary connectors. Does each speaker have its own individual cable or are they fed via some weird DIN thing via the sub?

 

[Anonymous]

thanks for the info guys. each speaker does have its own cable. the fronts are bi-wireable and the center and surrounds have 2 thin wires with an rca plug on the end, so i could probably just remove that and seperate the two +/- wires.

Here's what happend after i connected them up:

I connected the existing all-in-one speakers to the 2nd hand HARMAN KARDON AVR 2550 (watching batman begins on sky one hd in dd) but it went into PROTECT MODE and shut down after about 10 minutes at -25dB volume level and was also getting quite hot. So before i give them another go and damage something, do you guys still think they will be ok to use?

Here's the spec from the speaker tech sheet:

FRONT SPEAKERS
-----------------
3-way, Frequency range: 42Hz-40kHz (-16dB), Impedence: Total 6 ohm, Input Power: Total 160 W (Music), Output sound pressure level: 84dB/W (1.0m), Biwireable.

CENTRE SPEAKER
-----------------
2-way, Frequency range: 75Hz-22kHz (-16dB), Impedence: 8 ohm, Input Power: Total 120 W (Music), Output sound pressure level: 85dB/W (1.0m).

REAR SPEAKERS
---------------
1-way, Frequency range: 120Hz-20kHz (-16dB), Impedence: 8 ohm, Input Power: Total 60 W (Music), Output sound pressure level: 84dB/W (1.0m).

HARMAN KARDON AVR 2550 spec sheet

How would you rate these speakers for home cinema viewing?

What's a normal setting for the volume when watching a movie? i had it on -25dB above and that wasn't that loud before it shut down.

What does it mean by the word "Music" in brackets after the Input Power?

Could the problem be the 6 ohms on the front speakers?

The existing amp had power output as follows in surround mode: 2 x 70w (fronts), 45w (center) and 2 x 25w (rears). Considering the new av receiver has only 40w x 5, is this another problem?

would appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Andrew Everard]

The 6ohm impedance shouldn't be a problem, but something is clearly amiss. Assuming you don't have any short-circuits, or problems with the connection of those biwirable fronts, there is clearly a problem, and it seems it's not going to work.

Why is more of a mystery. That use of the word 'total' in the description of the front speaker's impedance is a little mystifying - are you sure you have the single-wire jumpers in, or are you biwiring them?

 

[John Duncan]

That's really quite low sensitivity isn't it? So the amp's going to cook to drive them, no?

At least the amp has a protect mode, but personally I'd give it a miss now that it's done it once.

 

[Anonymous]

The fronts are bi-wired using QED cable. 4 wires go from the speaker into the amp. At the amp i have twisted the 2 positive wires together and put them into the amp and the same with the 2 negative wires. Does this amp not support bi-wiring?

Would i get a better sound by using a dd/dts decoder with my existing all-in-one amp?

BTW, all speakers are made by Technics.

 

[Anonymous]

forgot to mention as i have no sub i've set the fronts and centre as LARGE on the amp and the rears as SMALL, is that ok?

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew/John - any further thoughts guys? or do you need more info?

 

[John Duncan]

No, not really. I'd avoid the biwiring if I were you though, you might feasibly be messing up the impedance. but I say again that they're very insensitive speakers and might just be too difficult for the amp to drive, hence the cutout.

 

[Anonymous]

The reason i bi-wired the front speakers was because they have 4 inputs on the back. These 4 inputs go into 4 seperate outputs on the back of the current technics amp. The top 2 are marked HF and bottom two LF. I think the fronts have subwoofers built-in. How would i connect these to the new av receiver?

I've seen that most av receivers have only two outputs for each speaker or will i have to bi-wire?

Also, should i set all the speakers to SMALL or LARGE on the av receiver?

 

[Anonymous]

also just found out that the front speakers have the following impedence: HF: 6 ohms and LF: 8 ohms, does that make any difference?

 

[Anonymous]

any thoughts guys?