Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Denon 3808CI and M80 Speakers

Hi Smuth10,

None of the mainstream AV receiver manufacturers ever specify their products will work into 4-ohm loads. However, through tests at Axiom and lots of customer feedback, the following brands of AV receivers (even the entry-level models of Denon and Sherwood Newcastle) will drive the M80s to quite loud levels in normal sized rooms:

Denon, Sherwood Newcastle, Outlaw Audio, NAD, Rotel, and B&K (I may have forgotten one. . .)

If you have a huge "great room," (6,000 cu. ft or more) or prefer extremely loud, CLEAN, 100-dB+ playback levels, which of course the M80s will reproduce so long as you have amplifiers of several hundred watts per channel, then get a separate power amplifier for the M80s (preferably the Axiom A1400-8!).

The brands of AV receivers that have overly aggressive protection circuitry that will shut down if they detect a 4-ohm load (or if the user moves an impedance switch to the 4-ohm setting) or go into severe current limiting, are: Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Kenwood, Yamaha and so on.

And tell Mojo to stop quoting that utterly bogus "dynamic power output" spec, which misleads consumers into thinking their AV receiver will drive low impedances for longer than a few milliseconds!

The only dynamic power output rating that is standardized is expressed in dB, as in "2 dB of dynamic headroom." Virtually no manufacturer ever uses this spec, since the bogus one yields huge power output figures.

Regards,

Alan

Alan, all THX-Ultra2 receivers are able to drive 3Ohm without effort and are documented as such. Since there are an increasingly larger number of them, you may want to include that in your list.

Hi,

I'll wait until we have enough customer feedback, or a THX certified unit in-house driving the M80s, before I include any THX units.

THX turned into a royalty-generating company that so diluted their standards that most knowledgable AV journalists long ago dismissed their various "certifications" as highly dubious.

Alan

In side by side comparison the M80 sounds more forward and detailed at lower volumes than the M60. I noticed a lack of forwardness when I received M60s and had M22s to compare them to. I now have M80s.

As far as seperates go I think you would end up paying a few dollars more for them compared to the Denon, the Sherwood Newcastle separates Axiom sells is more than the Denon by a few bucks $3400 for both pre/pro and amp.

And just to further boost you about Denon's robust amplification I own the 1804, mid-line model, and it ran my M22s and VP150 in parralel, about a 3 ohm load, as a center channel with no problems.

Alan,

I really don't know what that dynamic power spec means. I know for a fact that my Denon can't drive 200W into 2 Ohms...at least not at all cleanly. I use the dynamic power for reference only. If mine does 200W and the 3808 does 400W for example, then the 3808 should also be able to drive the 80s.

Stop with the bogus calims Tex. There I told him, we all know he doesn't listen though

Seriously he (Tex) would never try to mislead anyone. Except for the 1/4 watt crap

Well, I did mislead people with Mojo toe-in. It's actually a half watt...but what's a quarter watt between friends .

You didn't mislead with the Mojotoein you just didn't know any better I think I just mislead a few with the 1/4 watt comment

That Denon wil do mine. My 2805 Denon from a few years ago had no problems with my 80's. Many 4ohm speakers drop below 4 ohm, the Axioms are pretty stable at 4 ohm and above.

Scott, due to possible legal liability concerns, in manuals and often even in discussion with company representatives there is an unrealistically cautious approach to operating speakers which are nominally rated at 4 ohms. Amplifiers don't know and don't care what the impedance of the speakers that they're driving is; for a given loudness level they have to supply a certain voltage and current, following Ohm's Law. Any amplifier(as we've learned, even one in a boom box capable of 2 watts or so)can drive a 4 ohm speaker at some loudness level. How loud and how long are the determining factors, not 4 ohms per se.

For most real-world uses the 3808 or similar models from other companies such as Onkyo, Pioneer and Yamaha should do fine with M80s. In the vast majority of cases these receivers are the sensible cost-effective buy, rather than buying two or three separate boxes for the same function.