ar-58b 8ohms or 4ohms??

[Guest dmn66kn]

I have a pair of ar-58b speakers and i found a scan of the manual on-line, they said the speakers were 4 ohms, but they also said to connect them to a 8ohm receiver. The receiver i have is a 8ohm pioneer stere receiver from like 1998 will this work alright(when i say alright i mean it won't blow up on me)? I know you guys like your vintage receivers but this is all i have and it works fine for me. (i got these ar-58s out of the garbage at my work, they just needed new foam on the woofers which i did already, now they sound great, also the grills and cabs are mint).

[tysontom]

>I have a pair of ar-58b speakers and i found a scan of the

>manual on-line, they said the speakers were 4 ohms, but they

>also said to connect them to a 8ohm receiver. The receiver i

>have is a 8ohm pioneer stere receiver from like 1998 will this

>work alright(when i say alright i mean it won't blow up on

>me)? I know you guys like your vintage receivers but this is

>all i have and it works fine for me. (i got these ar-58s out

>of the garbage at my work, they just needed new foam on the

>woofers which i did already, now they sound great, also the

>grills and cabs are mint).

The AR58B is definitely a 4-ohm speaker, and the impedance actually drops below four ohms at certain points, so you should use it with an amplifier with at least 25-50 rms watts/ch that is comfortable driving a low-impedance (4-ohm), low-sensitivity load. Some amplifiers will simply draw too much current into a low-impedance load, and problems almost always arise from overheating. You could even cause a certain type failure that can send full rail DC voltage into the outputs and into the speaker, seriously damaging the woofer voice coils. You should probably check to see if your Pioneer will properly and safely drive four ohms.

On the other hand, if you have used the amplifier with the AR58Bs and it seems to get along okay and doesn't run hot, etc., perhaps you are safe as long as you play music at normal levels.

--Tom Tyson