Question about Speakers & Ohms (1 Viewer)

[Rebecca L]

Hi everyone! Here's my question in a nutshell: can you plug speakers that are marked 8 ohms into a DVD player that says 6 ohms on the back (and came with 6 ohm speakers)? Will something bad happen if I do this?

The full story is this: I had a cheap (but great) home theater system with surround-sound speakers for over 3 years. It moved with me about 7 times and I never had any problems until it just stopped reading discs late last fall. I got a new system for Christmas (a Zenith). The new system has surround-sound speakers as well, but whereas you could unplug the speaker wire from the backs of the old speakers, these new speakers have the wire attached to the backs. This is not good for me, as my living room is quite large. With the old speakers, I bought speaker wire, cut it to the length I needed, stripped the ends, and was ready to go. With the new system, I'm unable to place the speakers where I want and still have the wire reach the DVD player.

I'm uneasy about splicing speaker wire, as I'm not sure I know how to do it well and I'm worried about it compromising the sound quality, and I prefer the look of my old speakers anyway, so I'm hoping I can just use them with the new system. Any advice?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Hi Rebecca,

It’s fine to use 8-ohm speakers with a 6-ohm amplifier. It would only be a problem if the speakers were less than 6-ohms.

Regarding your cables being too short, it’s fine to splice the wires. There will be no sound quality loss. I suggest using butt splices. They’re covered here in my Comprehensive guide to splicing speaker wires article.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Rebecca L]

Thanks for the information, Wayne! I have enough wire to get it all set up without splicing, but it's good to know that I can if I ever move and need longer wires. I look forward to enjoying my system!