Some Speaker Advice

I'd first try opening up the Denon and try to get to the solder side of the PCB and reflow the solder on any of the areas that look like they get warm. You may get lucky. Also check for capacitors with swollen tops.
It would be a shame to throw our such a quality amp that's probably got a minor fault.

Originally Posted by chalkyt

Although I was tempted to go down the repair path, living well away from any place with electronic knowledge capable of dealing with a quality repair, having to trust sending and receiving the unit back, etc, the final decision is to move into this century and get a new amp with similar power output to the Denon. After all this may let me dip my toes into the new world of high quality music streaming.

By replacing the CD player with an old unit and the speakers with a couple of others, the problem remained... so the amp was the guilty party.

My concern is that for the last 20 years I have been running well known 4 ohm Australian floorstanding speakers. About 12 months ago I unearthed a couple of Canton "outside" speakers that had been in a box since we moved from Sydney yonks ago. So, to keep SWMBO happy I hooked them up as B speakers in the kitchen. My understanding was that the A and B outputs were independent but the feedback from "purveyors of fine amplifiers" is no, the outputs simply connect speakers in parallel so I shouldn't run A and B speakers at the same time if they are anything less than 8 ohm impedance. Doing otherwise puts a very low impedance load on the amplifier and may well have contributed to the Denon's ills. Unfortunately when I bought the Denon, I was told that A+B would be fine.

So my question is... is it practical to run the floor standing 4 ohm speakers with say a 4 ohm resistor in series without compromising the sound quality? Would this allow the Canton (labeled 6-8 ohms) to be run a B speakers. Yes, I am aware that some fiddling might be needed to get some sound balance between the two sets of speakers but figured that it might be worth asking the question.

The alternative is to go back to Plan A and just run the 4 ohm floor standing speakers by themselves with the Cantons put back in their box.

re the dipping your toes in to high quality streaming - definitely do this.

dispose of the denon - I would consider putting 2 seperate but linkable systems in the kitchen and the lounge.

so, one of the great options here is the bluesound powernode at circa $1300 (seen the outgoing one as a demo for $999) - add speakers and you are done. they use NAD amplification inside, and group well for multi room, and most importantly have a great app that works well for spotify connect, tidal connect, radio paradise etc.

Anyway, what it really does is give you an app that means you will listen to more music, never have to switch anything on, you can also eHDMI and use a smart TV to run music through and use the TV remote for volume - really, all about convenience.

There are always cheaper ways to do things, but sometimes simplicity and single box is worth it (i previously used amps with DAC's, wireless power on and chromecast audio) - no reason to compromise on sound quality anymore with plenty of lossless options for streaming out there

Thanks for the replies. I thought the resistor idea was probably stretching it a bit. My "formal" electronics education finished in the 1960's (yep, I was playing with vacuum tubes and germanium transistors) and the practical bit finished in the era of DIY Electronics Australia amplifiers and building DIY enclosures for Magnavox or Peerless speakers. So, I had a feeling in my water that the resistor idea wasn't all that great.

I moved on to actually buying stuff and have happily lived with it ever since, shuffling up from "consumer" gear like Sony etc to my current setup.

This time around I started looking at the new Denon PMA-800NE but am a bit concerned that the power is a bit low for the 4 ohm speakers. A couple of outlets I have spoken to indicated that this might be the case (of course they want to "sell up") and SWMBO suggested that if I don't "get the best" I will be miserable. So my thoughts have moved up market a bit and the Rotel A12, Rotel A14 Mk2, and NAD C368 are now in the frame, maybe even the Denon PMA-1600NE but at $3K it is possibly a bit far. Unfortunately Denon don't have anything around the $2K "sweet spot".

The search continues.

Long, long ago I tried 10w resistors on a 40W amp and they got super hot.

Originally Posted by Moondog55

All joking aside I thought I'd share our front rooms systems with you all.

What no surround sound?

Hmm, Cecile must be a very tolerant SWMBO. Must be interesting when it is all going.

I used to be immersed in this stuff back in the 90s. Sony was my substance of choice.

These days, I'm more of a plug and play consumer.
Sonos and bose do great wifi speakers that can play individually or all at the same time, all connected to your phone and streaming your choice of app. Can also be connected by Bluetooth or cable to an existing system.

Originally Posted by Moondog55

Not much room left in the entertainment unit tho.

they are literally just a speaker that you can plonk anywhere in your house. they connect through your home's wifi and you can put them anywhere you get signal - basically bypassing your entire system.
if you hard wire 1 of the speakers through the aux connection, or bluetooth connect, all the other speakers can source from that one connection.

Thank you all for the information, especially the feedback from Moondog and his "guru". You all don't know what I am talking about since there has been a lot of PM-ing running in the background. However the final decision has been Rotel A14 Mk 2 which turned up yesterday and was connected up today. An excellent recommendation at 150W into 4 ohms which has really brought the Krix Lyrix back to life (yes, they are the "Australian Speakers" referred to earlier). What is interesting is how the old Denon must have slowly lost its Mojo over the past 20 years (or amplifier technology has gone ahead heaps in the meanwhile). We now have crisp sound, individual instruments "pickoutable" (is that a word?), etc, etc.

At this very instant, a very happy SWMBO is blasting the world with her favourite Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons... Happy wife, Happy Wife!

Hi Moondog... I originally looked at having the Denon repaired but freight to and fro, the issues with finding an intermittent fault, the "long and trusty service over" it had given over 25 years, all conspired towards the Denon retirement decision. So, I would rather it went to a good home than the tip if you think you can get it brought back to life. I will PM you about how we can do this.

Originally Posted by Moondog55

really good ones take up a lot of real estate and usually have that low Spousal Approval Factor

Exact reason that I don’t have my setup these days. The 1.5 m3 subwoofer enclose just did not meet the aesthetics and styling apparently.

Originally Posted by Moondog55

I've been watching parts of this seasons "The Block" I actually cringed when the home theatre rooms were revealed and then cringed some more when they put kitchens in spaces better suited to music.

The thought of watching that show makes me cringe. As for kitchens, I think there is a sweet spot for work area and it isn't big. Home theatres, passing fad!