Hi there. I need suggestions on speakers for my shop. I have a Yamaha RX-396 on the way and need 2 sets of bookshelf speakers that will perform well. They will live in my woodshop, so handling volume is important, and decent sound wouldnt hurt either. I dont want to spend too much, but neither do I want something I cant hear over the machinery either.
I have a set of Sharp CP-DK257N bookshelf type speakers. They are rated at 4 ohms, 80 watts. From what I can tell, its not advisable to run 4 ohm speakers with an 8 ohm receiver. ? Im tempted to try them out, but dont want to damage the receiver as Ive read is possible. What are your thoughts on that?
Another question. The yamaha is 2 channel receiver, 50 watts per channel, with A and B speaker selector. Does this mean 50 watts per channel for the A set, and 50 watts for the B set of speakers? (Told ya I was a newbie!)
Again, I need 2 sets of speakers, and most of my money is wrapped up in tools, so be gentle with the price considerations ;)
You have a 50 watt receiver and you want some volume because these will be located in a woodshop. I hope you are not expecting to listen over a buzz saw:-)
You'll need some fairly sensitive speakers - preferably 90db @1 watt and better and with an 8 ohm nominal impedence. Don't take too much notice of speaker wattage except some don't handle all that well without decent power driving them.
Google various brands - KEF comes to mind with thier high sensitivity. I'm sure others will chime in with more brands to look out for. As far as sound quality goes - we can't tell you what your ears will like.
Probably should clarify that volume issue. I dont hope to hear anything over any saws, buzz or otherwise. But I would consider hearing music over the lgentle hum of my cordless drivers a huge improvement!
The 50wpc would include both A and B speakers, as the speakers are essentially run together from the receiver, so 4 8ohm speakers will fare no better than 2 4ohm speakers. This is without looking up your specs. you will gain slightly more volume and cover more space with 4 speakers, but it would be try and find out if the Yammy will run them without getting very hot.
I'll chime in here since I have the RX-496, one step up from yours Dave. I used to use it in my basement/home gym running both A/B speakers at the same time. I was running some PSB Alpha's (6 ohms, I believe) and various other speakers, including Paradigm Titans and Paradigm Studio 20's. This combination would go to absolutely ear-splitting volumes, as I'm sure yours would with any reasonably sensitive speakers. I had no problem hearing my music while running on the dreadmill.
I would heed the guys' advice to stay away from 4 ohm loads, though, as I believe the manual warns against this.
Thanks for all the info folks. I think I understand the ohms/resistance issue, roughly, but maybe not enough.
Assuming I could run 6 ohm speakers, as David Mitchell did, does running a pair of them on A and a pair of them on B increase the strain (for lack of a better word) on the receiver more than running just 2?
Yep! A + B is wired in parallel and drops the overall impedance by roughly half of the lowest impedance of the two sppakers. 6 Ohm speakers have a tendency to dip down to 3-4 Ohms which when combined would be quite low for your receiver at anything above very low volume levels. Stick to 8 ohm speakers and do your homework to make certain they are not 8 ohm speakers that dip down to 4 Ohms somewhere in their frequency range. If you intend to run four speakers, they all need to have no lower than 6 Ohms as their minimum and even with that you should be adding a speaker selector switch box with a "protection" switch added. Unfortunately, your Yamaha, as with most other receivers, just doesn't care much for low impedance loads.
For what it's worth Dave, I've driven my Yamaha with said speaker combination for an extended period of time at fairly loud volumes (not louder than a buzzsaw, mind you) with no issues.
But I'd definitely heed Jan and Nuck's warnings just so you're not out shopping for a new receiver anytime soon.