Murphyman,

Having a 4, 8 ohm switch would not help you in hooking up the speakers as an 8 ohm load. There are 2 ways you could do this.

1. use 4 ohm 15-20 watt resistor in line to make the amp see the load as 8 ohms, you will have to be careful with this as the resistor will eat up a lot of power which is dissipated as heat so it will get warm it may get very warm depending on how high you drive it. Also the resistor will change the response of the speaker but it is not sound you are testing.

2. Hook up the speakers in series; this will also present the load to the amp as 8 ohms.

I would not say that Onkyo makes junk they make some very fine products, but you also have to realize that the 787 is targeted at a certain market, and for the most part people who buy this receiver also will buy speakers within a given price range. And for the most part these speakers are 8 ohm. One of the areas that manufacturers cut costs, is in some of the most expensive components. Amplifiers capable of delivering high current for low impedances requires discrete output transistors to carry the current, large heat sinks to dissipate heat, big filter capacitors, and massive power supplies all of which are expensive components. To make the receiver in that price range some this is sacrificed.

When a speaker impedance rating is given the value stated is a nominal value a 4 ohm speaker could be anywhere from say 5.5 down to 3 ohms. For the most part it is the flagship receivers of these companies Denon, HK, Onkyo, that are capable of driving these loads without any problems. Any receiver that is THX Ultra Certified is supposed to be capable of driving speakers down to 2 ohm loads. The power supplies in these units have to be capable of delivering the high currents required to do this, so a 4ohm load is not much of a problem for them. To your model of receiver that 2 ohm load is like a dead short it will go into protection mode immediately. When you connect to a 4 ohm load the unit can drive this at low volumes, the minute you begin to push this the unit heats up and will very quickly into protection mode. I think that your confusion lay’s in the current vs power thinking you have. High current does not mean high power. You can have 400 watt amplifier that can drive 8 ohms very well but the unit does not have the capability to deliver enough current to drive a 4 ohm load. On the other side of this you can have 50 watt high current amp that will be happy to drive 4 ohms all day long if the power supply was designed to do so.