AV receiver for 4 ohm speakers?

Hi,
That's part of the reason I returned my Yamaha and didn't buy Onkyo. Marantz 7200, JVC DP10(my new one), I believe Sony 5, and most Denons will handle 4 ohms. I blew off the sony because of poor multi room features and an impossible remote. The Marantz sounded the worst and Denon didn't have some features that I wanted.

Integra, (the beefed up Onkyo) has a setup menu where you can select 4 or 8 ohms. I run the DTR 7.2 and love it. All the features of Onkyo with better performance. I highly recommend this receiver. I run all NHT and a friend of mine has the DTR 5.2 with NHT 2.3's and it runs with ease. Good luck.

-Kevin

I will say this, although I've had people tell me I was ABSOLUTELY NUTS, that it wasn't possible.

Back around '93 or '94 I ran into some money problems and needed to sell a couple amps. In the meantime, till the money problems were straightened out I used an Onkyo 2 ch. receiver to run my Apogee Stages. Never shutdown, no problems whatsoever.

I don't know about what the multichannel recievers will do today, but I'd venture a guess that they may handle some of the easier 4 ohm loads.

I have a 3-yr old Yamaha RX-V785 receiver (about $1k back then) that has a switch for 4 and 8ohm speakers. I assume that many newer ones, from different brands, have such switch.

The switches are actually small resistors that you can move in and out of the electrical path. They may change the way your speakers sound - don't use them. It is a cheesy way to get your 4 ohm speakers look 8 ohm to your amp.

My old H-K 795i receiver can handle 4 ohm loads no problem. I am not sure about most of the new A/V receivers. Amplifier design has not moved forward much and still takes a large amount of space in the receiver. If a setereo and a 5.1 receiver are the same size and wieght - they made shortcuts somewhere - period. Look at the transformers and heatsinks.

Also, look at how they report their power ratings. On some 5 channel receivers they report the power from 2 channels only as their rating and only at one frequency. They are trying to deceive us.

Dave