Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Sony ES vs Onkyo

JonnK,

Its about time you chimed in here.I thought the reason for the 4 ohm setting was for liability reasons......UL listings.

Bill

If your Sony receiver is design to run specifically at 4ohm(which is doubtful) then you shouldn't hear any sound quality loss, but as I stated earlier though... the lower the impedance you dropped, the higher the THD going to rise, and damping factor will get slash in half or more, and the hotter your receiver will become, all these might not mean anything to you, but that's the nature of Class A and A/B design.

If I were you I would run it at 8ohm.

Mr. Bill:

I recently e-mailed Axiom's Alan Lofft regarding my Sony STR-DE845 home theater receiver possibly driving a pair of 4-ohm M80ti's. Here is his response to me...

In reply to:

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...And no Sony A/V receiver will drive 4 ohms without severe current limiting (that means the power output to a 4-ohm load is dramatically reduced to a few watts per channel so it won't overheat). If you opt for the M80s, you'd have to sell the Sony and get either a Denon, H/K or NAD, any of which will drive the M80s with no hassles. Don't worry about 6-ohm loads with the Sony; just set it to 8 ohms.

...

Thanks for your interest in Axiom!

Cordially,

Alan Lofft
Axiom Resident Expert

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So, Alan's response concurs with what JohnK and wid posted a short time ago.

Hope this helps.

DZ

P.S. FWIW, I'm going with a pair of 8-ohm M60ti's with the receiver I mentioned above.

In reply to:

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If your Sony receiver is design to run specifically at 4ohm (which is doubtful)

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It is only supposed to be set at 4 ohm when one or more speaker is 6 ohm or less. Since I have 5 speakers that are 6 or less, I've been using the 4 ohm setting. But, I now have it set for 8 ohm for the first time ever and am testing it now. So far things sound very good, but then they did 80% of the time at the 4 ohm setting. More later after I've tried a lot of tests . . .

- Bill

No matter what ES receiver I had from Sony I always ran it in the 8ohm setting. Everytime, all the time with no problems at all.

I have to agree with everyone else here, switch it to the 8ohm setting and watch TV.

I'm wondering if the Axiom servers cache the avatars and renew once a week. The first time I was alerted to mine being out was around when yours went out, and I'm pretty sure I nuked mine earlier in the week...

DZ,
Please post your results here on running the M60's with the Sony receiver. I posted in another thread that I am able to turn my STR DE995 up to max volume and still not get the response I want out of my Epic 50 HT w/QS8's. In response I'm going to upgrade to the Denon 2805 to see if I have better results. Best of luck.

-Sam

Will do, Spooky. I hope to be ordering my M60's sometime in October and I will report back here with my impressions.

I'm a little concerned that you're experiencing problems with your Sony STR DE995 and the Epic 50 HT with QS8's. I'm sure the Denon 2805 will provide you an improved performance from that of your Sony A/V receiver.

I really would like to say it was a fluke, but I'm not sure what the issue was other than just being underpowered. I have been running this receiver with other older speakers (2 infinity fronts- 1"tweeter 8"mid-sub, 2 small B&W rears and a *gasp* bose center channel) with zero problems and GREAT sound except for the center which sucked.

Upgraded to the axioms, and to get the same sound level I had to max out the receiver. I hope that you will have better results, there is obviously a lot of variation even within the same brand when it comes to HT components.

-Sam

Did you make sure that all the drivers are functioning properly?
OTOH, Axioms are not super sensitive speakers like Klipsch. I use a 2 channel amp to supplement my 2802 and I have more volume available (in a rather large room) than I could ever use.