Home Theatre Receiver

[Okotoks Camper]

The receiver unit for our fiver went on the fritz during our trip down to AZ this year.

Can anyone recommend a unit (and a good place to purchase same) for us?

We need AM/FM receiver, CD/DVD player, 8 speaker connections at four ohms (wires, not plugs) for six inside speakers and two outside in a A - B type setup.

We will be at Quartzsite at the end of the week if anyone there has advice.

Thanks,
John B.

 

[John From Detroit]

Not much in QZ save Radio Shack/Satellite Advantage at the main intersection N.E. corner

However if you want to go electronic shopping out west it is hard to beat FRYS electroincs  On the net try www.crutchfield.com or www.jr.com

I'll make those clickable http://www.crutchfield.com  and http://www.jr.com

I'm not sure where Crutchfield is located, JR is JR-Music in New York City, I've done business with them and was pleased

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Most any Circuit City or Best Buy could fill your needs too. Heck, even a Super Walmart is likely to have some to choose from. You may find it is as cheap or cheaper to buy a complete system (with speakers), since the package price is often a great deal.  Mostly depends on the budget. 

You can put plus on your wires if you find a receiver that is otherwise right for you.

 

[Okotoks Camper]

Thanks for info guys.

I've already looked at Wally World, but they don't have any with speaker connections I need and all are packages with speakers. My existing speakers are hardwired in and I don't want to mess with that.

I hope I can get over to Fry's in Phoenix while I'm in AZ, but may have to do my purchasing online.

John B.

 

[John From Detroit]

Be advised many stores have package deals only, it can be hard to find single devices.

However the online retailers do have "just the receiver"

But you may have to change connections, many high end have screw terminals, low end often has RCA type plugs
for the speakers or 1/8" phone jacks

RCA at least is common in input sides save for antenna inputs which may be any of 3 types of connectors.

 

[Okotoks Camper]

An update:

We drove into Phoenix area and went to Fry's Electronics (I am blown away by the size of that store!). They discussed many possibilities with me, but I left without a unit.

The fiver is equipped partially as a car would be and partially like a home system. For example, The system is set up for AC, no 12V nearby. Yet, the speakers are 4 ohms, so a home system isn't compatible at 8 ohms. I'm looking into the possibility of connecting two speakers to one output so I can reduce resistance to 4 ohms.

What do you think? Am I nuts, or just ignorant? ???

John B.

 

[Just Lou]

John, you will get a more definitive answer from the experts here but I think you are confusing/mixing impedance with pure resistance and will not get the results you want by hooking multiple speakers in parallel.  JMHO  lou

 

[Karl]

John,
If you really, really want to calculate parallel impedances, look HERE!
O.k., now that you've had your brain bleached, washed, dried, folded and put away....  You can, for all practical purposes, ignore the inductance of the speakers and working only with the resistance, hook up the speakers in series or parallel (or a combination of both)  - providing that the speakers are of reasonably the same inductance. By that I mean that a 4 ohm speaker with a power handling capacity of 100 watts will have an inductance much different than one that's rated at only 10 watts. The difference is in the voicecoil wire diameter and number of turns. Simply stated, don't try to mix and match low power speakers with high power ones. You won't like the results. If you want to hook up 4 ohm speakers to an 8 ohm output, put two of them in series. If you want to hook up 8 ohm speakers to a 4 ohm output, put them in parallel. When doing so, series or parallel, make sure you observe the proper speaker polarity. If they aren't marked, just put a "AA" battery across the terminals of the speaker. If the speaker cone moves inward, mark the terminal connected to the positive terminal of the battery with a "+" sign. If it moves outward, mark the terminal connected to the negative battery terminal with a "+" sign (a dot of red paint works well too.). Do this for all speakers. If you hook the speakers in series, connect one speakers' "+" terminal to the other speakers' unmarked terminal. For parallel hookups, connect the "+" terminals to each other and the unmarked ones to each other. Then, when connecting them to the output of the receiver, make sure the "+" speaker wires go to the positive terminal on the receiver, and the unmarked speaker wires go to the negative terminal of the receiver. If you don't follow these procedures, some of the speakers may be out of phase with each other and cancel a lot of the sound - especially the lower tones. 

 

[Okotoks Camper]

Wow,

Thanks folks for responses.

Karl, I will pay particular attention to your information. Thanks for the detailed description. We're on our way home shortly and therefore have decided to hold off for a bit.

I will let you know when (,if and how) I resolve the issue successfully. It is my hope that I can use the speakers already in the fiver, rather than trying to fit new speakers in. My hearing is getting poor so the speaker quality may not matter as much as it used to, although Mary-Ann still has ears like a bat and that could affect the decision in the end.

John B.

 

[azeyen]

You can use most any home theater style receiver, or all in one. It does not take much to change the bare speaker wire to any type of connection. Most of your AV receivers are multiple ohm capable. They USUALLY state something like 6~8 ohm or 4~12ohm. If you measure your actual speaker wire with a meter, it will most likely measure around 5.6 ohm or even higher. The movement of the speaker itself will change the ohm level. Also if there are any passive capacitors (used to keep unwanted frequencies from frying speakers) in or attached to the drivers, they can change the impedeance as well. 4 ohm has become more common and I would not be suprised to see most receivers being able to handle that. For further research, find a receiver that you may be interested in, go to the internet and download that manual. In the back will be a spec list. It will verify the range of loads that the receiver will handle.

 

[John From Detroit]

There is a difference between Resistance, which you can measure with an ohmmeter (one of the functions of a multi-meter) and Impedance, which you must measure with a special device.  Resistance has ONE vector (resistance) Impedance has THREE vectors (Reactance, Capacitance and ... Resistance)  The Impedance of a speaker is Almost always higher than the resistance,  The exception is a speaker "network"where you have capacitive elements in the frequency dividers.  But even there you will usually find the resistance to be lower than the Impedance.

The DC resistance for two different 8 ohm speakers can be quite a bit different by the way.  So it's not a good indication.