Need help - buying new rear speakers for use with rear wireless receiver

[smail.nathan]

Hi all... I have a yamaha Yamaha RX-V663BL receiver, paired with a polk center speaker and two polk fronts (polk rm202 is the center, polk rm201's are the fronts). I currently have two bose (181's, I think?) as my two rears.

Needless to say, I hate the sound of the bose. Hate it. Love the rest of my system. In my apartment, the wife insists that the two rear's are hooked wirelessly - no compromise there. So please no suggestions telling me to drop the wireless - it's not an option.

The wireless quality is good - I have a LG ACC97WK rear wireless receiver - much better than the old Rocketfish I used to have - no drops or buzzing here.

Anyway, I want to upgrade the bose to two polk rears - I can get my hands on two matching polk rm201's to complement my front for pretty cheap -about 150 for both alltogether. I want to do this very badly, but I have one fear - the polks are rated at 8 ohms. The two bose I currently have are 4 ohms. The lg rear wireless says it's designed to use with speakers that are 4 ohms.

I don't know that much about this kind of stuff - would hooking up 8 ohm speakers to the rear wireless receiver damage the speakers or the rear wireless receiver? In other words, should I not do this? And if not, what speakers would you recommend for the rear? Everyhting I find that seems decent speaker-wise seems to always be 6 or 8 ohms. Like to keep the sound timber-matched, which would mean sticking with the polks.

Any ideas? Hope that I can just get the polks, but I don't want to do that if it would damage the new speeakers I would get or the rear wireless receiver.

The LG unit is pretty rare now a days, so I don't want to have to try and find a replacement. Thanks for all your help!

[zicmubleu]

I am no expert but from a pure electronics standpoint hooking an 8 ohm load to a 4 ohm source is OK. In order to get maximum power transfer both the source and the load should be equal but if you increase the load, speakers in your case, resistance you reduce the current flow but effectively dissipate more wattage at the load = more efficient. Efficiency is of little value to your listening experience but it should mean less heat generated in the amplifier output stages which is always a good thing. In otherwords, no problems. Don't confuse efficiency with maximum power, I know someone is going to jump on my case for this.

[smail.nathan]

Originally Posted by zicmubleu

I am no expert but from a pure electronics standpoint hooking an 8 ohm load to a 4 ohm source is OK. In order to get maximum power transfer both the source and the load should be equal but if you increase the load, speakers in your case, resistance you reduce the current flow but effectively dissipate more wattage at the load = more efficient. Efficiency is of little value to your listening experience but it should mean less heat generated in the amplifier output stages which is always a good thing. In otherwords, no problems. Don't confuse efficiency with maximum power, I know someone is going to jump on my case for this.

thanks for the help. everyone else of the same opinion on this? i think i'll jump on the two polks then if this is the case.

[Big Daddy]

Normally, when a receiver is rated for 4 ohm speakers, it can handle 8 ohm speakers without any problems. 8 ohm speakers will draw less current from the receiver. The reverse is not always true. Receivers that can handle 8 ohm speakers cannot necessarily handle 4 ohm speakers.

[smail.nathan]

Originally Posted by Big Daddy

Normally, when a receiver is rated for 4 ohm speakers, it can handle 8 ohm speakers without any problems. 8 ohm speakers will draw less current from the receiver. The reverse is not always true. Receivers that can handle 8 ohm speakers cannot necessarily handle 4 ohm speakers.

Very interesting. Thank you both for enlightening me. Learned something new today. I pulled the trigger on the polk rm201's. So happy to be rid of those two bose bookshelf's. Thanks guys for the help!