Kenwood VR-6070 Surround Back Question (amp needed?)
neophite
Posted on
I have ordered this receiver and will be hooking it up when I get it on Tuesday. I have several questions...
Background: I have a very difficult room. My current digital dolby receiver (which is being replaced) has two front speakers + center speaker + two "surround" speakers installed in the wall at the back of the room + my sub.
Yes, the "surround" speakers are supposed to be at the side of the listening area, but my wife was having none of it many years ago when I got this setup.
Now that I am getting the VR-6070, my wife has given me permission to try "small satellite speakers" on stands for the surround speakers provided I set them up for movies and take them down. In fact, I have two extra Klipsch ProMedia satellite speakers I would like to try for the surround speakers, but that is subject of another email post.
The question here is since I have two in wall speakers (Polk AB805) that will be used for the Surround Back speakers, do I need an amp to drive them? What happens if both speakers are simply hooked to the one rear speaker output (both + to the + post, both - to the - post) -- do smoke and flames come out??? As needed, I have a 15 year old receiver I could drag out and run the surround back preout to it, but it will look UGLY with the rest of the equipment in the cabinet (and no easy place to hide it).
I read where you wire speakers in series and it raises the impedance -- but what happens when they are in parallel (which I think is what I would be doing)?
You can tell I know nothing by this silly question...
It should work ok, though I confess I haven't tried it yet. The receiver would be running a 4ohm load (assuming the Polks are 8ohm) while it's only rated for a 6ohm load. Put your hand on it to see if it's getting real hot. If your worried about it, hook the speakers up in serial instead of parallel.
Greg
neophite
Posted on
Duh! I was thinking since the wires to the speakers in the wall were non accessable, I could not wire them in series. But reading your reply, I think I can wire them in series...
It would be Amp+ to speaker#1+, then speaker#1- to speaker#2+, then speaker#2- to the Amp-. Did I get that right?
I thought when you wire two 8 ohm in series the "effective" ohms the amp see is 4 ohms. But your reply seems to imply that if you wire in series two 8 ohm speakers, the amp still sees 8 ohms. Is this correct?
Thanks for the help / advise.
Jeffrey
Posted on
neophite, I would not recommend wiring in parallel, this iwll cause you to run 8 ohm speakers at 4 ohm and overdrive the rated output of the 6070. Better to wire them in series. Assuming you have two speakers at 8 ohms, then you wire the + to the red terminal of on speaker, then run a common wire from the black terminal of this speaker to the red terminal of the other, and then connect the - of the amp to the black terminal of this second speaker. This would give you 16 ohms load and I have done this and it worked.
You need to put your foot down when it comes to home theatre and tell the wife, that room is yours, this one is mine. That's what I did and even though my wife hated it at first, she sees how much joy I get from it and now accepts that it is my baby.
