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Driving 4 ohm speakers

I have been given a pair of ADS L200 and a pair of ADS L300 speakers. I am planning to take them to my office, which is about 12x16. I have an old Arcam Alpha 9 amp that I will use there.

Forgive this sophomoric question. The Arcam is rated to drive one set of 4 ohm speakers, or two sets of 8 ohm. The ADS are 4 ohm. My question is, can I drive both with this amp at low volumes? In this small space, I can't see cranking up the volume very high. Obviously, I don't want to burn out either my amp or my speakers.

Thanks for your advice.
lynnc

Showing 1 response by almarg

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almarg
9,670 posts
 
I have no knowledge of how well the Arcam would handle a two ohm load. But I want to point out that while putting either a resistor in series or the two speakers in series will result in a functioning setup, it is not a recipe for quality sound. In either case bass damping goes out the window. And in the case of the two speakers in series, if their impedance vs. frequency curves are not identical, frequency response irregularities will result in both speakers.

Regards,
-- Al
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