Just curious about the yammie receivers. Can they handle 4 ohms well?

Any of their receivers?

I'm wondering if the 4600 will be able to as well, but we'll have to see I guess.

Newf,

Generally, no. Although a couple of Axiom customers have had success using a Yamaha A/V receiver to drive 4-ohm M80s, I don't recommend them, and that's based on past experience with M80s and Yamahas.

The only brands of multichannel A/V receivers that we have found to be stable driving M80s in rooms or reasonable size (not huge rooms; for those you'll need a separate power amplifier for the M80s) are Denon, H/K and NAD. I expect the large expensive Rotel would have no problem with 4-ohm loads, but I don't have specific data on it.

All other brands of A/V receivers in our experience (Pioneer, Yamaha, Kenwood, Onkyo, etc.) will go into current limiting, overheat or shut down temporarily if used to drive the M80s.

Regards,

http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/yamaharxv2500benchtestp1.php

Look at their power output into 4 ohms and 8 ohms. Also look at the damping factor.

That damping factor is almost tubelike(read: bad, when talking output impedance), and the output should at worst only go up a few watts: the fact that it goes down is evidence of either current limiting or inadequate amps. The receiver is over $1000, in which case you'd be much better off with a refurbushed 50 lbs NAD or HK which can handle 4 ohms no problem.

ahhh, just what I was looking for, thanks

Wow Thasp... I had no idea that Yamaha was really that bad with 4 Ohm loads. I wish I still had my RX-Z1 to try some 4 ohm speakers.

Is that one of their flagship ones?

What I've noticed is that flagship receivers usually measure/perform as well as seperates, but cost much more. The RX-Z1 would probably do 4 ohm loads no problem since cost wasn't an issue.

It was their flagship a few years ago... before the RX-Z9 came out and destroyed it. At least it retailed for much less than the Z9 even when I bought it.