Speakers to receiver impedance mismatch?

Question

I bought a new receiver. I hooked up existing 5.1 speakers to this. I turned on- got no sound. I was using radio as source.

I subsequently disconnected all the speakers and tried with headphones (using radio as source). Still no sound.

The receiver's manual says to connect only speakers w/ 6-16 ohm. I discovered that my speakers were all 3ohm.
Could I have fried the unit?

The speakers were part of an old home-theatre-in-a-box set I'd bought 5 years back- a Sony. So I did connect 5 speakers all of the same rating!

The receiver's display shows that the station is tuned. It is the local NPR station that I listen to all the time. Plus, with FM at least you normally get the staticy buzz when you are not 'tuned' and even that was missing when I was just pressing the tuning button.

I tried TV and DVD as well, to no avail.

Answer 1

Yes you could have. That low of impedance could have stressed the amp. look for a independent fuses as well. This is why you read your owners manual before you hook anything up.

Get a multimeter and look for activity, also smell the unit, I know it sounds crazy but you can tell a burnt Mosfet from a mile away.

Answer 2

Your not going to damage the receiver. A decent amp/receiver will play speakers with low impedence with no problem, it will just run a little hotter than it would with a higher impedence. I would try a different source like a cd to make sure it is not the tuner because you are not getting sound through the headphones. Just curious, what kind of speakers do you have that are 3 ohm? Thats an odd imdedance for a standard speaker.

Answer 3

I really do not think you can burn it - impedance on speakers/amps is not a constant - it changes with the frequecies, and for a 8ohm rated speaker can go between 2ohm and 10ohm, or even higher.
Since you do not get any sound form headphones - which usually connected into the pre-amp stage, and not the amp - you probably do not have a signal in your tuner. SOme recievers do not make noise when there is no signal in the tuner - they mute instead.
Put on your phones, and try different stations - FM and AM, and play with volumre. Make sure the antena wire is connected. And MUTE is not on.
If that does not work - connect outside source - CD, MP3 player. If that does not work - then you have a problem. Take is back to the store.

Answer 4

Very unlikely that you damaged the unit, unless you tried to play something really loud, and you would have definitely noticed that. The headphone output is independent of the speakers, so the fact that you are not getting anything through the phones indicates something else is wrong.

3 ohms is a little low to use with that amp, and you could risk overheating the power output stages when playing loud passages with a lot of bass. But you are unlikely to cause permanent damage to the amp, since most have thermal protection built in.

Answer 5

Spend the money and get the 8-16 ohm for Ur receiver...Otherwise eventually U will B buying a new receiver.