4 ohm speaker hooked up to a 8 ohm receiver?

Question

i have 4 4ohm speakers hooked up to a 8ohm receiver and they sound really bad when hooked up what could i do to make them sound better because there the only speakers i have at the time

Answer 1

If they really sound bad then you need to replace them.

Second off Ohms law does not work for characteristic impedance!!! It only works for purely inductive loads. And any speaker I don't care from who is not exclusively inductively reactive.

Bottom line you have a few choices like fiddling with the eq. But the speakers sound bad because you are over driving the amp.

The best solution is a correct impedance speaker.

Answer 2

All the current Onkyos have this option also. It is highly suggested from experts in the audio field to use the 8 ohm setting. First off in 4 ohm your reciever will run way hotter than normal which may or may not harm the amplifier in the reciever. Onkyo even claims in it's owner manual to select 8 ohm when using 6 ohm speakers as being best for it's reciever. The 4 ohm setting should only be for speakers rated at 4 ohms.

Answer 3

Some receivers cannot handle 4 ohm speakers and will start distorting since the impedance is mismatched. This sounds like the problem. Unfortunately there is no easy fix for this. Furthermore, if you continue to run it in this configuration, you could permanent damage the receiver. If you want to keep the speakers, you will have to get a receiver or amp that can handle 4 ohm loads.

Sorry!

Answer 4

Hi Gordon. You will have to connect two speakers together in Series for the left channel and the other two speakers together in Series for the right channel.When two speakers are wired together in series the total resistance will equal the sum of the resistance of each speaker.So two 4 ohm speakers wired in series will have a total impedance of 8 ohms
(4 + 4 = 8 ) This is how it is done :

The positive [+] output speaker terminal from the LEFT channel of the Receiver is wired to the positive [ +] input terminal of the first left speaker (SPEAKER A )


The negative [-] output speaker terminal from the LEFT channel of the Receiver is wired to the negative [- ] input
terminal of the second left speaker. ( SPEAKER B )

Finally a wire is connected from the negative [ - ] input terminal of SPEAKER A to the positive [+ ] input terminal of SPEAKER B.This completes the joining of the two speakers.

The same procedure is done for the right channel speakers

Answer 5

If you're got four of them, you could run them as two pairs run in series. This would effectively give you two 8ohm loads.