Yes, wid. I should have thought more before commenting on Blue Jay's picture. bobt, I was not referring to you, I just wandered off topic a bit.

Good luck to you bobt. I not only really like my M504, but I picked up new wood side panels because one of mine came scratched and some veneer peeled off the top.

AFAIR, nobody in this thread said that Bob's idea of trying another amp was stupid. In the end, there might be nothing wrong with the M80s and his Onkyo might just not be able to drive them.
What's outstanding is is rejection for 13 pages to try something extremely simple based on some reason that makes no sense at all.

What I realized is that in this forum we're only good to convince people spend more money, not less Usually, people come to the forum asking if M22s, VP100 and QS4s are enough and they end up with M80s, VP180 and QS8s. Here we're trying to save Bob $400 for an amp in case the problem is with the speaker and we're not able to

Anyway, Rick is right. Bob, good luck in solving your problem in whatever way makes sense to you.

Well, everyone is different from others and also think differently. If not what would be the joy of being a human being if we were all equals and think all equally? Sometimes fear of losing something that you like can blind you from seeing things they were supposed to be. Guess that he is so afraid of frying his AMP ( that he loves so much ) that this is blocking him from trying out the suggestions. For people who are sure of the outcome of what will happen if they try to use the amp and will simply shut down it is easy to accept the suggestions, but if he is blinded by fear in any way...

This might be something going down deeply in his conscious, so it will never change.

Bob, if you consider the Onkyo M-504 manual to be "valid info" and if you bother to take the time to read it, as I have, you'll find at p.4: "Only use speakers with an impedance rating of 4 ohms or more with this unit". The reason that the M-504 doesn't show an "official" 4 ohm power rating is that in order to do so under FTC amplifier power regulations it would have to drive a 4 ohm load at the full rated power for at least 5 continuous minutes, which few units are designed to do without overheating. In real use, you may find, as have others, that the M-504 not only "likes" 4 ohms, it loves it!

Oh my... why is this thread so long!

After having John confirm, I just think the amp is too old for the ohm load as things do wear out and you better buy another.

I wouldn't get rid of the M504. Find someone who can work on electronics, swap out some of the power capacitors and enjoy the Honking Onkyo Integra. It's a great amp, and its huge power meters are downright beautiful at night.

You have spent more time arguing on this forum than it would have taken to try one speaker at a time to see if there is a short somewhere. As an EE (and ClubNeon can back me up), one more test would not cause your amp any harm especially since the trip is there to protect your amp.

Stop being so defensive, there have been a lot of good suggestions here. It's better to spend a little time to see if you have one bad speaker than to spend more money to buy another amp you may not need.

I understand where you are coming from bobt and I hope the Qsc works for you. I also hope you will stick around long enough to let us know how it works out.