new speakers from hsu :)

[LazyMarc11]

Hi guy's,
Just receive my hc-1 mk2 and hb-1 mk2 bookshelf speakers.
I have to say that Im impress with the paint finish & it looks very nice and smooth.
I got every thing hook up and calibrated. I have a question so here it goes.
The bookshelf hb-1 mk2 has a impedance of 6 ohms and the hc-1 mk2 has a 8ohm rating. I did switch my pioneer elite 92 to a 6 ohm setting. is this setting okay? I just don't want to mess any thing up.

[godsmack129]

I was just curious?How do you change the ohm setting?

[myspark1]

Well, if his receiver is anything like mine (Onkyo TX SR876s), there is just such a setting in the onscreen GUI. On mine, you can even hear a kind of "clunk" as something is switched, too.

But the original question is a great one: my receiver provides 4 and 6 ohm loads. Is this messing up my center channel? Could that be why, even after Audyssey calibration, dialogue is still too low?

---- Mark

[cynan]

I seem to recall this question being asked before on these forums.

General wisdom seems to be to leave the receiver setting at 8 ohms, regardless of speaker impedance.

This is because the ohm selector on most AV receivers simply reduce maximum power output with lower impedance settings. This is done to protect the amp from overheating when trying to provide maximal wattages to lower impedance speakers, as lower impedance speaker will try to draw more wattage from the receiver than a higher impedance speaker at higher levels. But unless you are running your system near max volume or you have a particularly poor power tranformer section in the receiver, this should not be an issue with most receivers and most speakers, especially the HSU HB-1s, which don't drop too much below 6 ohms and therefore should not draw excessive power.

It seems that most modern receivers are forgoing these impedance selector switches and instead simply relying on overheating protection circuits which trip when combined power draw reaches critical levels for sustained durations.

So, bottom line, with the HSU speakers (and most all home audio speakers) just leave the impedance selector at 8 ohms as this will allow your receiver to deliver the most power to the speakers.