When going from a multichannel receiver to a stereo receiver, driving the same 8 speakers, things are definitely going to sound different. The DRA 355R receiver is 40 watts, and not rated to play below 4 ohms. If the prior receiver was an avr unit, the speakers were being driven by separate amplifiers within the chassis. I am not surprised by what you are hearing. And, depending on whether you wired the speakers in series or parallel, I am surprised you have / have not tripped the protection circuits of the Denon receiver, as mentioned by millercarbon above.
Soundstage disappeared!?
Not sure what happened but this weekend while listening to my system, during a song I noticed the bass went neutral & the instruments disappeared into the back of the room? Up until that time, when I played music it was if I was in the room, concert hall, etc. with the musicians. Not anymore.
The 411 on my system is:
Pioneer PD-F606 CD Player
Pioneer SG9800 EQ
Denon DRA-335R tuner
Audience Ohno Interconnects
16/2 stranded copper speaker wire
8 speakers (8 ohm) Pioneer, Kenwood & Technics
This weekend I'll be able to swap out components to identify the source of the problem but wanted to get you guys opinions on what could be the problem. I'm leaning towards the tuner but will admit I'm electrically incompetent. If it's the tuner, what happened? If it's the equalizer, what happened? Did the speakers crossover? I hope you guys have some way to send me that I haven't already thought of.
Thanks in advance