Ohms??????????????????????????

Ohms is a spec that refers to load a speaker puts on an amp. IOW, the lower the number, the harder your amp needs to work to drive them. The 110 watts @ 8 ohms is telling you the amp will put out that much power to an 8 ohm load. Running 6 ohms is probably OK, but it would be a good idea to consult your manual or call tech support to see if there is a problem in doing so. Running to low a load can kill an amp.

Most receivers will be OK with 6ohm (or higher) speakers. You should be able to find this info in receiver's owner's manual.

Which receiver you have?

Doesn't a 100 watt amp at 8 ohms, put out higher wattage at 6 and 4 ohms?

Michael

Connecting speakers with too low an impedance to receivers that can't handle it can stress the power supply and result in increased distortion and damage to components and probably other bad things. What receiver are you considering? Most consumer receivers don't state operating conditions with lower impedance speakers because the average consumer doesn't really see speakers with nominal impedances below 8 ohms that often. There are exceptions of course, but at the brick and mortar, big chain stores where a lot of these things are purchased by the average consumer, all the speakers are 8 ohms or close enough.

I would think 6 ohms isn't enough of a difference to matter too much as long as you're not driving them too hard. However contacting the receiver manufacturer, posting the model here, or reading the manual would probably all result in a helpful answer for you.

Yes, and that's exactly the problem with lower impedence loads. The amp tries to put out more power but can't due to it's limitations = it goes into self protect mode (or dies if it has no such mode). Trying to put out more power than it can deliver causes the unit to work too hard = bad things happen.

The manual gives no info on running loads lower than 8, so I would call Sony if I was you. The good news is this receiver has auto protect so it will shut off before it frys itself. Are you mixing a new receiver and DVD player with some old HTiB speakers? Those are normally specifically matched to the system they work with. You probably would get much better results with different speakers.

If I was in your situatuion, I would try them out. I think the likelyhood of it working just fine is very high. I am using a 4 ohm center speaker with my receiver in 8 ohm mode (it has a 4/8 switch) and it works perfectly fine. Just ease the volume up slowly and be prepared to turn it down if anything starts to happen (receiver shuts off, smokes, horrible distortion).

-Max

I agree with Max. Give it a try at low-ish volumes and ease the volume up. Regardless of a speaker's rating, its true impedance ("ohms") will vary over the frequency range. That means that most speakers are dipping to <8 ohms based on frequency. Turn it up a little at a time and see how it goes. If you are playing at reasonable volumes, you will almost certainly be fine. I would not hesitate to connect 6 ohm speakers to *any* receiver, especially at low to medium volumes.

I also have a similar situation. I have a Pioneer vsx-815 which operates at 6 and 8 ohms. My speakers are cerwin vega re-30 series that operate at 4 ohms. The cerwin vega surround and center say they operate at 8 ohms or less. When they say less, do they mean 8, 6,, 4 etc? Or do they mean less power such as 10 ohms? I'm confused. Also my sub is a Sony SA-WX 700 that is at 3 ohms. Should I set the amp to 6 or 8 ohms? I have had it at 8 for a while and its fine, I changed it to six today because I just found out I could. I think I hear a little more crispness, but it has always sounded excellent. But I'm the type of person who wants the best performance out of what I bought, I have protection plans on everything, so I could care less if anything breaks. Also as a side note to my set up, I have my sub running through my front speakers, and the crossover at 80. All speakers are set to small even though the fronts are huge. Any suggestions would be great, also should I just step up to a new receiver, I am kinda waiting till hdmi 1.3 receivers are available.

If you like the sound and you haven't noticed any smoke coming out of your amp, I'd just leave it as is. When they say a speaker operates at 8 ohms or less, as you drop down in freq. so does the impedance.

Oooookkkk. Pretend your talking to a retard. Does less mean 10 ohms or 6 ohms?

The bigger the number the higher the resistance (impedence), 6 is less than 10.

Here is an article that should help you understand better. the simple answer is Less would be 6 ohms.

Okay. Every now and then I see questions regarding speaker impedance and the importance of matching loads with what your amp has been designed for.
In this article I intend to explain what impedance technically is, why it is important, and how it is calculated.

What Is Impedance?
Impedance is the resistance that an electrical component, such as a speaker, offers to the flow of current. It is measured in Ohms. It restricts the current flow within a circuit to a specific amount at a specific frequency. This component is commonly known as a Load.
Now to put that into context. An amplifier puts out a large amount of current (measured in Amps) that is intended to move the speaker coil and generate sound waves. An amplifier would have been designed to produce a specific amount of power (measured in Watts) through a load with an impedance of commonly 4 or 8 ohms.

Why Is It Important?
The lower the impedance of the load, the greater the current flow will be. Too little resistance, however, will result in too much current passing through the output circuitry and which may cause damage to the amplifier. This being the case, it is always important that you do not use your amp with the impedance of the load less than that of which your amplifier has been designed for.
Running a load of greater impedance will not cause any damage to your amp, however you wll experience some loss of power and therefore perhaps a slight drop in volume.
Another thing that needs consideration is the fact that some amplifiers have more leniency towards impedance mismatching than others. So it’ll always be a good idea to read your manual or ask a tech to confirm what your amplifier can or cannot do.

How It Is Calculated?
Every electrical component has a resistance, and these all come in a very wide range of values. Amplifier speakers are usually made to have an impedance of 4, 8 or 16 ohms. Which, thankfully, keeps it simple.
So, say for example you've got yourself a 50watt amp designed for no less than an 8ohm load, and an 8ohm 50watt speaker. Well that'll be simple, just plug 'em together.
But what if you want to use multiple speakers? Or what if all you've got is a 4ohm speaker? Now here you will need to do a bit of calculating and re-wiring of your own to ensure you match the impedance as closely as possible in order to prevent possible damage to your amplifier.
And to do that you'd use that handy little life skill of yours known as maths.

Series and Parallel
To explain further, firstly I must explain the difference between Series and Parallel circuits.
When components are in series it means that they have been wired end to end, so that the current will flow through each component one after the other. Each component in the series will have an added effect on the total amount of resistance that the circuit will have.
When components are wired in parallel the current is split into multiple paths and flows through each component individually. But now that there are multiple paths in which the current can flow, the resulting resistance within one section of the circuit will have significantly less of an effect on the total amount of resistance within the entire circuit. The more components wired in parallel there are, the more number of paths there will be and therefore the less total amount resistance there will be.
Got that? Yes? No? Doesn't really matter. Hopefully the maths will help explain it.

When Wired In Series
When multiple components are wired together in series the total resistance will equal the sum of the resistance of each component.
So two 4 ohm speakers wired in series would have a total impedance of 8 ohms. (4 + 4 = 8).
One 4 ohm speaker and one 8 ohm speaker wired in series would have a total impedance of 12 ohms (4 + 8 = 12).
One 8ohm speaker and two 4ohm resistors wired in series will have a total impedance of 16 ohms (8 + 4 + 4 = 16).
So the formula for this would be: R1 + R2 + R3 + ... = Rt

When Wired in Parallel
Just like in my above explanation, parallel is a little bit more complicated. Here the reciprocal of the total resistance is equal to the sum of the reciprocals of the resistance of each component in the circuit.
The formula for this would be: (1/R1) + (1/R2) + (1/R3) +... = (1/Rt)
So two 8 ohm speakers wired in parallel with have a total impedance of 4 ohms (1/8 + 1/8 = (1/0.25), Rt = 4 ).
Three 8 ohm speakers wired in parallel will have a total impedance of 2.6 ohms (1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 = (1/0.375), Rt = 2.6).
Four 8 ohm speakers in parallel will have a total impedance of 2 ohms (1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 = (1/.5), Rt = 2)

A Couple More Examples
A quad box has been wired in series-parallel, two lots of two 8ohm speakers (that have been wired in parallel) are both wired together in series. This cab will have a total impedance of 8ohms.
A fold back wedge has in it an 8ohm speaker wired in parallel to a 180ohm Piezio tweeter. This will have a total impedance so close to 8ohms that it wouldn’t harm your amp at all if you ran it at just that little bit less.

Conclusion
Okay yeah, it does get kind of hard to follow there. But it will be definitely worth your while to keep these formulas in mind, as one day they could come in handy.
If you still need further explanation it would be best if you read up a bit about Ohms law so that you gain an understanding of the relationship between Current, Resistance and Voltage. Google for that.

Thanks for reading. Cheers.

- Chris

Your definition of impedance makes no mention of capacitive or inductive reactance...which is the major component of the impedance of a speaker coil.

Impedance is not just resistance. It is the vecotr sum of resistance, capacitive reactance, and inductive reactance.

We are not teaching an electrical engineering class here. I was trying to give someone a simple explanation and I found an article that did that. If you feel we need to go deeper into the explantion of resistance, be my guest.

...but, you didn't.

I'm not the author.

it was a good, solid informative post for the OP.
don't mind the jackass.

lexa695, just give the proper credit to the author, please. It's fine to reprint an article as long as you credit the source.

Who would know...you didn't credit anyone, and posted as your own.



It was supposed to be informative? It doesn't even come close to reality.

Oh, and phuck off, jackass.

Targus is correct. Impedence is not resistance. They're the same at 0hz (also known as DC), but impedence changes with frequency and resistance doesn't.

A speaker's impedence changes with frequency, so an 8 ohm speaker isn't 8 ohms at all frequencies. Most of us here already know that.

The article's author mixes the terms resistance and impedence. Change the word impedence to resistance everywhere you see it, and the article's not bad.

If you're going to use the terms, you should use them correctly. Getting only part of the answer can be dangerous.

yes, impedance is resistance plus reactance, so 'resistance' in layman's terms is one component of impedance... and it does help determine how much current runs to the speaker.

the article above is perfectly fine for helping someone who just wants to know whether he can use speaker A with amplifier B.

Targus just likes to find people to insult and make himself feel big by spouting his knowledge of EE, regardless of whether it's relevant to the conversation.

FreeFire, these guys prefer the 'wrong' information...as long as it's easy for them to understand...their ego's are very fragile.

the guy wants to know whether he can use his 6ohm speakers with a receiver rated for 8ohms.

explain to me again why he needs to know that impedance is resistance + capacative reactance + inductive reactance.

and explain to me again why you find it necessary to act like a 13 year old when you tell people they're wrong?

What a six ohm nominal rating means the average impedance it close to six. Since speakers change impedance through out the frequency band (and there are a lot variations among designs), you can assume that it may go as low as four and as high as twenty, but the average would be around six.

So what does this mean to your receiver? When the impedance drops from lets say 8 ohms to 4 ohms the voltage used is halved (Voltage = Current*Resistance). So the sound being produced now needs lets say 50W of energy to produce it at full dynamics. If at 8 Ohms your receiver is rated 75W per channel there should be no issue. But lets take things down to four ohms. The receiver is now demanded to output twice the current at half the voltage. More often then not, the receivers have no problem delivering the voltage but can not deliver the current. This tends to stunt dynamics of that particular sound.

As for the danger to the equipment, here is how it goes. Reaching the maximum current tend to increase the heat of the device as well as the resistance of the output devices. It increases distortion (this is mostly an issue if the load is continuous). Distortion can be very damaging to your speakers. The methods in which a designer can make an amp/receiver handle the extra load is to place a large power supply as well as either large or paralell output devices to handle the load. This usually increases weight and cost of the device as well as the complexity. This is why many people prefer low power simple amps with high efficiency speakers. There are of course many great complex designs, it just takes a lot of care.

This is part of the reason you hear about system synergy. Since you are dealing with a complex interaction, a proper pairing of an appropriate amp is important to achieve good overall sound.