Panasonic XR50 & Ascend CBM-170

I've got an Ascend set-up, too. When I tried the Panny XR50 with them, it went into shutdown mode. And the volume level wasn't that high, either.


While I don't think the Ascend's are particularly hard to drive, for some reason the Panny just doesn't have the juice to drive them.


I know the Pioneer 1014 drives them OK and so does the H/K 330. i've also had an older Marantz AVR drive them well. You might want to try one of those.

Must not be a good match.


You may have a defective unit, but with Graphic's experience, the Panny may simply not work with those. The Panny should not go into overload at -30. I have watched movies at -15 without any problems, using speakers in a 7.1 config.


You may want to change the receiver or the speakers. I know the yamaha 5590 I had was able to drive low impedance speakers. The 5790 has gotten good reviews, although it is more $ than the XR50.

I drive my CBM-170s with a SA-XR10 with no problems. Of course this is a bedroom system and I don't usually drive them that hard.


Todd

Thanks for the reply guys.


Funny thing is that when I am watching movies (5.1), I can crank it to -30 or -27 with no problems at all. It gets plenty loud at -30 watching a movie, but not as loud when I'm using the CD input. That's why i was thinking maybe there's a setting that i'm overlooking?

The 50 is a great receiver. Something is not right though. I have watched many movies at -28 to -15 without any problems. Hope you figure it out.

What The!,

Not sure if this will help, but you might try the A/D Attenuation mode. I was having overflow when listening through some analog equipment, and a/d attenuation mode worked well.


It does lower the volume at the same level, maybe by 3db or so, but you may be able to turn it up much more without overflow. Its worth a try atleast. (see manual pg 19 at bottom)

You need to tell us specific things - is it 'overload' or 'overflow' ?. If it is 'overflow' it is easy to fix. As peted20 mentions, you can use A/D attenuation. When you say 'CD input' you mean the analog input or just digital input ? You should be able to play your CDs with the digital input.

I initially thought the Panny was finding it difficult to drive your speakers. But you say it plays movies loud. I would guess then it is just 'overflow'.

Some pieces just don't match well with each other. With the amount of people who have had positive experiences with the Panny, I might say that the Ascend/Panny match may not be a good one, though.

Ascend specifies the "average impedance" of the CBM-170s as 8-ohms. Note that this is only an average impedance and the specific impedance of a speaker can vary over the frequency range, sometimes by quite a bit. I haven't seen any impedance testing results on the CBM-170, but there are many speaker impedance tests on the web which shows that some 8-ohm speakers can go way below 3-ohms at certain frequencies. If the particular piece of music you are listening to happens to have a lot of energy at one of the impedance-dip frequencies of your speaker, you may run into problems with overloading your receiver. I suspect this is what is happening in your case.

Quote:
Shoot -30 on my XR50 my ears be bleeding. So loud. I like mine at about -40 to -50


Great unit and it's a keeper.

While I haven't looked at the impedence curve on the Ascends, I do believe they can and do "dip" quite a bit lower than 8 OHMs. Great sounding speakers, but they need power.


I recently tested a Sherwood NC R965 (not a power slouch), and the Ascends shut it down when driving 7 Ascends. I know that upper level Pioneer AVRs (1014 and Elite) drive them well, however. Marantz AVRs drive them well, too.