Overload on my receiver (1 Viewer)

[Andy Kramer]

Well i knew it would happen eventually... but i dont understand... if anyone could help explain this concept to me i would really appreciate it. I have a Panasonic SA-HE100 receiver, the other night while listening to a cd at a decent volume (probably louder then any parents would like it to be), my receiver clicked and the display read overload. Now am i too assume that there was too much power being called upon to drive the speakers thus it overloaded the circuitry? Now in the mean time I have Yamaha ns-777's hooked up to the receiver as the l/r mains. On my one channel the tweeter went dead. Is there some kind of relation between what happened to my speaker and the overload on my receiver? And is it time to get a new receiver? Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help.

Andy

 

[Ed Moxley]

Overloads are usually caused by too much heat. Does the receiver have plenty of breathing room? Also make sure the speaker wires aren't shorting and making good connections. Try setting all your speakers to small (if they aren't already). Are you driving 4 ohm speakers, with a receiver meant for 8 ohm or higher? That will cause one to overheat, when playing at a mid to loud volume.

 

[Andy Kramer]

Ed thanks for the reply... all my connections are good.. maybe giving it some more breathing room would help... it has enoght already thought. As for the ohm the speakers are 4 and the receiver can handle that from what i understand.... if i could ask this question then since ohm are still hard to understand..(from what i know correct me if im wrong but the lower the ohm the more power it takes to drive it????) but what would be a ideal receiver to drive these speakers correctly? Im looking to upgrade so.. I was gonna go with mid lvl denon or a high end yamah to match my speakers... as always thanks for any suggestions

Andy

 

[Ed Moxley]

I'm not sure of all the brands, but I do know that Denons are NOT for 4 ohm speakers........ A friend has one and emailed Denon asking about it. Denon says 8 ohms or higher.
Look on the specs page of your receiver's manual (usually at the back). It will say something like:
120 W per channel, min.RMS, driven into 8 ohms...........or
driven into 4 ohms...........

I think if it says 8 ohms, you need new speakers.........for current receiver, anyway.

You can email the major brands you like, and ask if they can handle 4 ohm speakers. I've heard of some brand receivers that have a switch on back to choose 4 or 8 ohm.

 

[BrianWoerndle]

Yes, you need a new receiver with more power. Your receiver was asked for too much power, which caused clipping that destroyed the tweeter, not to mention overloading the receiver.

While Denon receivers are not specifically designed to drive 4 ohm loads, the 2803 or 3803 should drive those speakers at a reasonable volume. You won't be able to reach reference levels though. Denon has just as strong of amps as a comparable Yamaha, even if Denon doesn't say 4 ohm.

 

[ChrisLazarko]

As far as I know the Panasonic can power a 4Ohm speaker but isn't recommended for it I don't think. I know it states that it will power a 6Ohm speaker.

 

[Ed Moxley]

If you use a receiver to drive 4 ohm speakers, that's meant to drive 8 ohm, and you cause problems to receiver, related to this, the warranty will PROBABLY be void............something to think about.

 

[Andy Kramer]

Ok so then let me ask for me to aquire refrence levels on my speakers what would it take, b/c i love these speakers and dont really want to part with them. On a side note, the receiver i have has an option to turn low imp on (aka 4-6ohm in this case right?) I have done that in the past but found when i turned the volume up it became distorted at around -15 db. I thought doing that would help get the speakers the more power they need guess it is time for a new receiver. So how could a properly acheiver refrence quality on these speakers if no one reciver [that isnt ridiculously priced] can handle it?

 

[AaronJB]

I have a Panasonic SAHE200. Despite the fact that some magazine articles (forget which magazine) stated that these could drive 6ohm and 4ohm, I've found that it's really not true, as I've gotten the "overload" message w/both 4ohm and, after a while, some 6ohm speakers. That's not to say that this isn't an excellent receiver, which I enjoy. But it doesn't seem to be able to capably/easily (comfortably, shall we say?) handle anything aside from 8ohm speakers. There are plenty of excellent 8ohm speakers, including most (if not all) JBL speakers.

The fact that the SAHE100 and 200 can get awfully warm if they're pushed hard (which is quite nice on a cold day, actually) also doesn't help matters.

 

[Jon_Liu]

I have a Panny SA-HE200K as well and find them to get pretty dang hot. I had to clear a lot of space for the unit to breath. If I didn't, all the other components would get overly hot as well. I don't know why this unit produces so much heat, especially with a fan on back!

Oh well, for a 6.1 receiver, was pretty hard to beat!

 

[samhtj]

I had the same problem, in that the receiver would automatically shut down displaying the "overload" message. I checked the 5 fuses inside, as well as ensured that the fan was working. I was using six 4ohm speakers + subwoofer. All the speakers other than the rear center channel and subwoofer were ceiling mounted in the room.


However, I decided to check the overall impediences of each speaker line to ensure that there wasn't an issue with the speakers. It turns out that the net imediances of the four corner speakers and the front center speaker were 5.7ohms because of resistance in the long lengths of speaker wire I had. However, the impediance of the rear center speaker was only 4.7ohm -- because the speaker line was much shorter.


Thus, the quick solution: ensure that all the speaker line lenghts are the same, (to ensure that the overall imediances of all the speakers are the same). Once I did that, the receiver started working beautifully -- full loudness surround sound working fantastic.