Hello everyone,

I am piecing together a 5.1 setup to be used for music/movies/games on my computer and I've run into a few snags that i hoped you guys could help me with. My current setup is a pair of Epos M5s, a Martin Logan Dynamo, and a Denon AVR-3300. I plan on eventually finishing off the rest of the speakers with matching Epos rears and center. Here are the questions i have:

1) The Denon AVR-3300 says it can handle 6/8 ohm impedences, but my speakers are 4 ohm. Will this hurt the amplifier? Right now it doesn't seem to be too hot, but when i add on the other three speakers will it cause problems? Also, not sure if this is relevant, the Denon outputs 105 watts per channel (i think), and my Epos say 100 watts per channel.

2) Right now I have a Soundblaster X-fi Xtreme Gamer soundcard in my computer, but the cable that goes from the soundcard to the receiver is pretty bleh. What is the best way to get the audio from my computer to my receiver?

3) I don't really have much space to work with, and i rearanged my room to try to get the best performance i could out of my speakers, but its still in a pretty enclosed space. Each of my front speakers is a little more than three feet diagonally away from me and I have a wall thats a few feet behind me. Thats also where I plan on putting my rear speakers...up against the wall (yeah, i know thats bad -_-). Is there anything i can put on the wall that would help reduce the reflections (is that the right word?). Right now I have a bed sheet hanging there, but I'm not sure how much it's helping.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this :)
I appreciate any help you guys can give.

bump, any help would be really appreciated :)

If you play at soft volumes, it likely won't hurt. If you crank it up, you may put more load than designed on the amplifier. This can cause a number of different problems:
1) overheating of components in the amp. The amp MAY self-protect against this.
2) excessive distortion because of the mis-match. This may cause you to blow your tweeters.
3) "bottoming out," which sounds bad.

Usually, the surrounds and center are driven by a different amplifier block, so adding more of the speakers wouldn't change the load, except on the main power supply. If the design is really cheap, though, it may have some effect, like if there's a single power supply circuit for the entire device.

The best way to get sound from computer to speaker depends on your sources. If your sources are stereo music and DVD 5.1, then using a digital cable is best. You can get a coax digital cable to put into the receiver, and an adapter to plug it into the 3.5mm digital out on the X-Fi. It may be that that card can also encode multi-channel output to bitstream in real-time, in which case that digital cable would also work for multi-channel games. If you have true PCM multi-channel sources, such as music production software, or some games, those will otherwise be best carried on actual analog cables, and you just need to get a few good quality 3.5 mm -> RCA cables.

Thanks alot for the info. I do like to play my music at high volumes, so I guess that means I need to get a new receiver (this one is my dad's old one). Any recommendations on receivers with hdmi that support 4 ohm impedences? Thanks a lot.