Speaker and receiver question.?

Question

I have already posted questions on here about the receiver.

I am making an upgrade. Narrowed down to a Sony STR DG100 or a Onkyo TS-XR605 or 705. Speakers will soon follow and that brings up my question. Speakers I have researched, like the amp, are on a budget. I found the Yamaha NS-555. My question is this. The Yamahas are rated for a max of 250 watts. That is of course not an issue with these amps. However, the "nominal" power is rated at 100 watts. What does this mean? Is this the lowest power suggested to go to these speakers? This would be an issue with one amp. The Onkyo TS-XR605 is rated at 90w per channel. Help me out audio nerds!

So explain to me what nominal power refers to?

To the person referring to "british" speakers. Thanks for the input first of all. I only know of B&W Speakers. A friend of mine has these. They are awesome and also WAAAY out of my price range. Any other suggestions?

Basically, I think the heart of the matter is this. Are these speakers TOO BIG for these amps? Should I be looking at smaller speakers? Or am I totally being thrown off by the term of nominal wattage and way off base?

Answer 1

first of all Buy the Onkyo, Sony receivers are absolute garbage. the onkyo will drive the speakers you mentioned with ease. Although i would not recommend Yamaha speakers because of their poor quality. As Robert mentioned in the post above look at the KEF IQ1 speakers i DO own these speakers and they are far batter than any speaker that Yamaha ever made or will make. i really think you should check out the IQ1's you WILL NOT be disappointed.

Answer 2

Hi there. To answer your question ,NOMINAL means AVERAGE A loudspeakers impedance and sensitivity has to be taken into consideration when matching it to an amplifier.Impedance is resistance that varies with frequency. Therefore a speaker that has a NOMINAL rating of 8 ohms means an AVERAGE rating of 8 ohms.Impedance variations will occur throughout the speakers frequency range..It could drop as low as 3 ohms or rise as high as 40 ohms. The amount of variation determines how difficult the speaker is to drive.The amplifier must be able to deal with these impedance variations ,producing the amount of power necessary to drive the speaker at any frequency.If the amplifier is not capable of dealing with the impedance swings,audible distortion occurs.

EDIT
The Yamaha speakers have an input impedance of 6 ohms
When it says they are rated at 100 watts nominal that means average.or a safe amplifier out put of 100 watts which will not damage the speakers. The only thing to be certain of is will the amplifier cope with a nominal impedance of 6 ohms if its output impedance is 8 ohms.

Also have you listened to the speakers to see if you are happy with the quality of the sound they reproduce ?
There are much better speakers than Yamaha.Any of the British designed speakers will outperform the Yamahas.
Also there are better Receivers than Sony and Onkyo for about the same price.Quality is more important than quantity


EDIT..These are British speakers KEF Q IQ1 Bookshelf.very neutral sounding speakers.Would these be in your price range?

http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/542300006

Answer 3

First of all.....GET THE ONKYO. The max rating just means you would not want to run those speakers with an amplifyer that pushes more then that wattage per channel/speaker. YOu can easily run your 90 watt amp with 100Watt rated speakers. Make sure you use decent speaker cable, BRAIDED wire and you will be fine. Nothing to fear just don't over power them!

Answer 4

I recommend an Onkyo HT System in a box. I have an Onkyo 6.1 system and its Excellent..easy to set up and install. Suggestion..don't use the speaker wires that come with the system. Buy better (thicker) cables when you connect the speakers. Check out their ratings on-line....very good product reviews. You can get it without the DVD player also.

Answer 5

I know those receivers and those speakers. The Onkyo will drive the speakers far better than the Sony! In this case don't worry about the numbers.

Answer 6

If your basing your decision on wattage, then either amp will work fine considering the fact that the maximum comfortable listening range in watts is roughly 10 to 15. If you want quality then I'd buy neither one. Take a look at the new Denon AVR4308CI. This amp is killer.....

Answer 7

Get the ONKYO for the audio processing alone...It's one of the world's first receivers that can process COMPLETELY UNCOMPRESSED DIGITAL AUDIO from Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs...It sounds 10 times better than a normal DVD...If you haven't heard this new audio format, click this link to see how: http://www.avtruths.com/uncompressed.html

Answer 8

dont buy sony...get the onkyo

Answer 9

Don't exceed the rating !!!