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Yamaha M-80 Amplifier Connection Options

Hello to all,

Hoping to shed light on the best speaker hook-ups for a new (to me) Yamaha M-80 amplifier. The amp will power (1) pair Boston Acoustics VR-3's. The BA's are 15-250 watts, 8 ohms and have 93db efficiency. Until now I've bi-wired the speakers c/o my Yamaha AV5990 (rated at 120 watts 20-20). Not bad, but I'm looking for much better from the new M-80 rated at 250wpc @ 8 ohms.

The M-80 gives me the option of using speaker pair A, pair B and/or pair C either separately or in a variety of combinations. However Yamaha qualifies this with the following verbiage...Scenario 1; Connect (2) pairs of speakers in parallel using A and then using either B or C --- OR --- connect (2) pairs of speakers in series using B and C.

Now Yamaha recommends that speakers run in parallel be 8 ohm minimum and then add that speakers run in series be 2 ohm minimum. I'm determined to keep bi-wiring but I'm not sure what's my best option given all the different combos???

Here is the PDF version of my owners manual... http://www.usersmanualguide.com/yamaha_audio/separate_amplifiers/m-80

I sincerely appreciate any good opinions...

Mike S.
128x128mako20ft
mako20ft's avatar
mako20ft OP
4 posts
 
Good advice all; the specifications list 250 watts at 8 ohms but what it actually will push is anybody's guess. After reading the connections page in the manual for the 10th time I'm going to try wiring using the B & C channels. This set up will be in series and logically should give me a 16 ohm resistance???
hlemel
1 posts
 
I also have a question on a bi-wiring set-up. My speakers are JMlab 8 ohm speakers capable of 50-150 watts and bi-wireable and my amp is a Luxman L-430 (105(?) w rms/channel. The amp has an A (L+R) and B (L+R) speaker inputs. It accepts 4-ohm - 16 ohm speakers if only the A-output is engaged and 8ohm-16 ohms if A+B speaker outputs are used.

The crux of my question:

I can bi-wire either to A speaker output on the amp alone or separate out the BASS/mids to A and the tweeters to the B speaker outputs on my amp. In fact I did this for a while with great sonic results.

However, I noticed that the amp was getting very hot and so I wondered if by this setup, the nominal 8-ohm resistance of my speakers had been reduced to 4 ohms which is below what the amp specifies for A+B speaker outputs being used simultaneously. When I limit the bi-wiring to the A-speaker output, less heat is generated, but the sound isn't as nice (better separation, depth, etc.)

If I am reducing the ohms to 4 with the A+B bi-wiring setup, is there ant conceivable way to get the same advantages by hooking up the 2 speakers in series. My mind blows a fuse when I try to think about this.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Harold
elevick
2,636 posts
 
Harold,
My guess is that you are making the amp work harder by matching the impedance between the 2 halves of your speakers. I don't know your amp but know the Yamaha very well. The Yamaha makes some HUGE compromises when adding pairs of speakers, especially the C pair. A&B are Parallel which is halving the impedance. A,B&C are using a combination of parallel & series to keep the impedance reasonable. I don't know why they ever made this option available since the amp is so nice and the feature is so junky?
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