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4 Ohm Speakers, 8 Ohm Amps

World;

I own a pair of Vienna Acoustics Beethoven's and a Maestro center channel. I have been using a Carver 806x amp to power all of the speakers (the sides and rears are 4 Waltz's). I have just purchased a pair of Carver Silver 9T's to power the Beethoven’s and I was going to bridge two of the channels on the 806x to accommodate the Maestro center.
I was on the phone with Rita from the Carver Service Center talking about the bridging method, but when I told her I had 4-Ohm speakers she IMMEDIATELY said, "Carver is not responsible for damage to the speakers or the amps." Rita said that they do not recommend driving 4-Ohm speakers with the 806x or the Silver 9T's. I was also told that bridging is not recommended for 4-Ohm speakers. Believe me, I am a little lost because the science of this does not make that much sense, but that is why I am writing this email to solicit ideas and opinions and possibly a solution to my dilemma.

DMH
dmhaney

Showing 1 response by bufus

bufus
149 posts
 
I wouldn't be too worried about running 4 ohm speakers with the amplifiers in stereo mode, as long as you don't play your music extremely loud!!

I probably wouldn't run a 4 ohm speaker on the bridged amplifier. Does the amp have enough power that you could just use one channel to run the center speaker? If you do this, you might want to take some precautions to protect the unused channel, i.e. put an 8 or 16 Ohm resistive load on it??
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