ok, stupid question probably

[the-eliti]

heres the deal....
I have a denon stereo receiver 100 watts X 2 and 4 old speakers 50 watts max at 8 ohms. the impedence for hooking 4 speakers up is 8 to 16 ohms for the receiver, but whenever i turn the volume up to a nice listening level or turn the bass up, the receiver goes into protection mode. a while ago i had some crappy speaker wire and i could play music as loud as i pleased, but now with my new monster cable, its going into protect all of the time. any ideas?

thanks,
todd swiss

 

[Phage]

how are the speakers hooked up [series or parallel]

 

[the-eliti]

well, the back of the receiver it says A + B, there are 8 twisty things, 4 for red, (+) 4 for black (-)

todd swiss

 

[subwo1]

Well, if you want to hook up all 4 speakers, you will have to put them in series and then just hook each series pair up to one set of speaker terminals, A for example. The thin speaker wire had enough resistance to lighten the load on the receiver. That indicates that if your speakers are 8ohms each, your the amp is not designed to handle them both running when you set the selector A + B. On all the receivers I have seen and worked on, A + B means parallel, not series. Otherwise, just use the best pair of speakers by themselves.

 

[Phage]

it has 8 output connections on the back? You sure your reciever is only 2 channel, might be 4. Well anyways if you have the speakers wired in parallel [2 speakers connected with their +'s and -'s going to the same terminals] then the impedence is 4ohm not 8.

 

[Brett]

oscillation or damage

Hi Todd,
If it worked OK before, and doesnt since you installed the Monster cable, I'd suggest it's going into oscillation. That means that the power amplifiers have become unstable, and are generating a very high frequency on their own. This puts a huge load on the amplifier, even though you can't hear it, and so trips the protection. Most lower priced gear is built to a tight price point, so it only just has what it needs to, to work.

Go back to the standard figure 8, and if it works again that's the problem. Boutique wires are seldom better IME.

Alternatively, as you have hooked up a higher load than you were supposed to, you might have done some damage to the amp stages. Oscillation may have done the same too. The manufacturer's spec says 8-16 ohms, and you have a nominal 4 ohm load. A speakers impedence is not a flat line, and each speaker may dip well below it's nominal impedence, working the amp harder still. I'm only guessing here as I don't have the specs for the speakers you are using.

Hooking speakers up in series will work, but I have never heard it sound anything other than crap. [This is for complete speakers and crossovers. Individial drivers done this way in some configurations sounds less crap] Try it for yourself though. You might find it OK.

Cheers

 

[Super]

This is a common problem among high capacitance cables (i.e braided). You can add a zobel filter right at the speaker terminals to compensate for the load problems and if high quality components are used, there is minimal if any change in sound quality.