Question on rear centre speakers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (1 Viewer)

[JasR]

Question from a newbie on this forum, could anyone give me any advice on how to connect 2 rear speakers out of the rear centre channel of my RXV 630 yamaha (6.1 AV receiver)with out over loading the channel as i want to run 2x B&W 602s3 at the rear and 2xB&W 602s3 at the sides and B&W 603s3 fronts and B&W LCR 600s3 front centre all speakers rated at 8ohms. Any help would be very much appreciated.
Jas.

 

[John S]

being 8 ohms, I am 99% sure you can just put them in parallel, jumpering from one speaker to the next easy enough.

Let us know how you like it setup as such.

 

[Brian L]

Well, thats true if your receiver is OK with a 4 Ohm load.

Some are, and some are not.

There should be a rating on the back of the receiver as well as in the manual. Even if it is rated for a 6 ohm load, you may be OK if you don't crank things, but there would still be a risk that the receiver would shut down.

BGL

 

[John S]

Well, Nearly every AVR I have seen even only rated down to 8 ohms, is ok with only one channel at 4 ohms, even if you do crank it a lot. That is a lot different than if all channels had 4 ohm loads on them for sure.

 

[John Garcia]

You are not talking about just lowering the impedance, you are also drawing twice as much current because there are two speakers. The best way to do it would be to use the pre-out for the rear center and drive these speakers with an external stereo amp.

 

[John S]

So John Garcia, are you saying you wouldn't even try it?
That seems a little to overly cautious to me is all.

I mean why buy an amp if you don't have to right?

 

[John Garcia]

No. That is what I feel is the right way. That doesn't mean what hooking them both to one channel won't work (I've done it before). In reality, none of the rear speakers are active at all times, and when they are, they are not sustained for long periods with most movies. It shouldn't be a huge issue, unless you are running this amp at the limit of it's capabilities with all your speakers hooked up (what are your mains?).

Just be cautioned that hooking two speakers to a single terminal will be drawing more current, so your total available to all speakers will drop, leaving you less headroom for transient peaks. This could lead to clipping if you push it too hard, and may damage your speakers.

 

[JasR]

Thank you for all your replys, another question how would it sound if i was to hook the speakers up in series which should put a 16 ohms load an the rear center channel of my amp and to over come the lose in power caused by the 16 ohms load i would use the speaker adjust in my amp to add the lost db would this work ????????????

 

[Brandon D]

Why not yank your LCR600 center, ebay it, and run 602s3's all around? This would give you an almost seamless soundstage (room acoustics providing).

I was going to do that with 3 pairs of B&W 602s3's, but later decided to go with 3 pairs of monitor audio s1's. Of course this is just my opinion.

 

[John S]

You can run it 16ohm, calibration should take care of it as well. The demands on the rear center are not typically to great, I would really try the 4 ohm first.

In practice, if your AVR has never shut off before, and shuts off, you would only need to change it to a 16 ohm config to be right back on track.

I have read of, and seen quite a few "7.1" speaker setups on 6.1 AVR's, and not one of them has had an issue with running the two backs in a 4 ohm configuration.

I know some here are even doing it, I am surprised they have not chimed in on this thread.

 

[Drew_W]

This is what I'd be most worried about. Yamahas are ok at running low impedence loads (I think there's a switch you have to flip at the back though), but I'd be more worried about the power reserves of this receiver if you like to listen at louder volumes. I had a 5650 for a bit (which would be a 540 I guess in RXV terms, the 630 was the old 5560), and I ran it dry powering 5 speakers of about the same efficiency as your B&Ws.

Take John's advice and look into external amplification. Your AVR will thank you.

 

[JasR]

thank you all very much for your input i will try these things and see, but looks like a power amp might be on its way soon then.

 

[Miles]

Hey,

I may just try to run parallel on my system (Marantz 6300 and Paradigm Titan rear centers) to see how it works...

would this be:

from the (+) terminal on the receiver
to the (+) terminal on LeftRearCenter speaker and on the same terminal
to the (+) terminal on RightRearCenter speaker

from the (-) terminal on the receiver
to the (-) terminal on LeftRearCenter speaker and on the same terminal
to the (-) terminal on RightRearCenter speaker

?

Thanks for any help,

 

[ChrisLazarko]

You can do a 7.1 setup but my question is why. Few titles support 6.1 even, and 7.1 is in effect going to create two rear center channels which just kinda boggles my mind why you want to do that?

 

[Miles]

Hey Chris,

I'm guilty of crossposting but I put the following in another thread


Thus having the single speaker behind you may be worse than a 5.1 setup...

 

[John Garcia]

Have you TRIED it? I did, and felt it was worth while. Not once did I ever get "fooled" into thinking the sound was coming from the front. IMO, this is more likely to be a result of improper setup and calibration than being an effect of a rear center.

 

[Brian L]

Yup, I would agree with that.

My rear center is directly behind my couch, firing up from a window sill. With hard-center stuff (fly overs, like the very beginning of Star Wars, AOTC) the effect is dead nuts; the ship enters from the back, and flys right over your head.

And when the rear 3 channels are just doing ambience, that works fine as well.

Having said that, I would accept that with certain test material, the reversal affect may be real, but with actual film content, I am not hearing it in my rig.

BGL

 

[Miles]

Actually yes I have tried it as I've been running 6.1, I'm guessing, for about a year. I've compared 6.1 tracks to 5.1 tracks by disabling the center surround and have just not been blown away. I did experiment briefly last night with two speakers run in series... but have really been able to turn the volume up high yet.

 

[ChrisLazarko]

I had the AVR-230 for a while and added in a temporary center back speaker for a center channel and didn't seem all that impressed. Although true it does give a fly-over effect when a ship or something is going by, I find very little use in any other application..