I just got my M80's ,VP150 and 2 QS8's and hooked just the M80's to my old ONkyo TXDS676 reciever. I was able to play them for less than 10 min before the amp went into protect mode. I was playing them loud and the amp wasnt hot yet so I am guessing it doesnt like the 4 ohm load.

So I am thinking I might get the Emotiva LPA1 for now since its cheap, 4 ohm stable, and has a little more power for the new system. I am not really ready to get a higher end reciever untill some bugs are worked out of the new HDMI recievers OR I one of the emotiva or outlaw pre amps get some HDMI 1.3 ports. I really like the Onkyo 905 but it seems to have some bugs....and its pricy.

One other thing I need to hook to all this is a set of the Axiom outdoor speakers. There are no pre outs from the Onkyo for a zone 2 speaker. It doesnt even have zone 2....just speakers A and B. Now if I have both speakers A and B running (had it in the past) it will only do stereo for both sets. In the manual it says when hooking the reciever to an externial amp to use the pre outs and turn off speaker A.

What I am wondering is if I hook the LPA1 to the reciever and turn off speaker A can I still use the amp in the onkyo for speaker B...and if so will it just do stereo for both sets again???

Thanks

Mark, I haven't looked up the old 676 manual, but apparently the 676 uses the surround channels for the other set of mains when they're connected to B, so no surround play is possible when using the B connection. Using a separate amplifier for the A speakers wouldn't change this, since there still would be no surround channels, as they'd be powering the B speakers.

Here is a link to the PDF of the 676 TXDS-676 PDF

That stinks! I was hoping that since the reciever was just sending signals out the pre-outs that it would effect if speaker B was on or not.

Okay Mark, I studied the 676 manual and there wasn't anything that would change the previous reply. Although it doesn't specifically say that when B speakers are on that the channels that are ordinarily powering the surround speakers are instead powering the B speakers, that's the conclusion to be drawn from the fact that when surround is on B is off and when B is on only stereo is available for A.

Didn't quite follow your last sentence, but if you select B, it's on and surround is off, regardless of what other equipment you have.

Ummmmm, his name is JohnK.