Running two front centers and how to wire them (1 Viewer)

[RobTauber]

I would like to try running two center channel speakers up front. How could I run the wire to prevent them from hurting the receiver? Both are 8 ohm speakers. Series or parallel?

 

[Nathan W.]

I'm currently running two centers off of one channel - a pair of Bohlender Graebener Radia X3 driven by an entry level Kenwood receiver. Before that a pair of BIC America DV52si bookshelfs. Since all deep bass is redirected to the subs in my setup, I wired them in parallel and haven't had any problems with the Kenwood...............yet. "Yet" because I just started using the BGs and they're rated at 4 ohms, so I have about a 2 ohm load on the center channel (that Kenwood is workin' it's *ss off). I listen to movies at theater levels sometimes during the day and so far the Kenwood copes with the low impedance while staying clean. And I used to have my components stacked tightly together with some other unit on top of the receiver, but it never overheated driving dual centers.

I think it would give up the ghost immediately if I ran the centers as large, though, being wired in parallel. I really didn't worry about smokin' the Kenwood since it cost so little.

If you go parallel, ease into the volume level and monitor the receiver or amp temp and listen for clipping.

 

[Andy Goldstein]

i'm running 3 sets of double advents across the front. they are rated at 8 ohms each, but should really be rated 6 ohms. so far the kenwood is doing fine, but i would think 2 ohms is really pushing it. try series and see how it sounds. gotta be safer for the amp.

ag.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Depending on how you physically set them up, comb filtering between them can be a problem. (Peaks and valleys in mid to low freq response as you go off-axis due to deconstructive interference.)