Home theater using old speakers

[focussmistr]

Hello audioholics,
first of all, my english is not perfect so I'm sorry if some sentences might not make sense.
I've had a cheap, 100,- home theater (the cheap ones where the subwoofer works like an amp for all the speakers). After some time, my dad gave me his really old, almost unused and in perfect shape, 4 old passive sony speakers. After a bit of research, we've discovered that they all have a 6 ohms impedance, 2 of the speakers are 60W RMS and the other 2 speakers are a 100W RMS.
I could find any labels for those speakers, but after connecting them to a stereo amp, they sounded great, so we've decided to use them for our "new" home theater.

To be clear, I've split my plans into 3 parts:
1. I want a 5.0 home theater, definitely gonna buy a better quality subwoofer later on.
2. The only speaker I need to buy right now is the center speaker.
3. The receiver then must be 5.1 ready.

These plans unfortunately lead me to a series of questions?
1. Isn't there a problem having one pairs of speakers with 60W RMS and the other pair 100W RMS?
2. Central speakers are usually different impedance, would it be a big problem if connected to a 5.2receiver? Lets take the sony STR-DH590, the cheapest possible receiver in my country.
3. Last but not least, this receiver that I choosed for a refference, some of the specs are unclear to me or make no sense, let me explain.

Speaker impedance use 6 ohms – 16 ohms
Minimum RMS Output Power (6 ohms, 20 Hz – 20 kHz, THD 0.09%) 90 W + 90 W
Stereo Mode Output Power (6 ohms, 1 kHz, THD 0.9%) 105 W + 105 W
Surround Mode Output Power 2* (6 ohms, 1 kHz, THD 0.9%) 145 W per channel
Measured under the following conditions: 2*: Reference power output for front, center, and surround speakers. Depending on the sound field settings and the source, there may be no sound output.

There are couple of thigs that are unclear to me and I don't know where and how to find some explanation.
By the description provided, it seems like the more channels are connected, the more output power it gives. Isn't that supposed to be reverse? Besides the terrible THD of 0,9% I'd definitely choose a different one, but it seemed like the best fit for my speakers. The next information I'm curious about is wether I can connect a central speaker with different impedance, and if YES, how would it affect the output power to each speaker?

To make things clear, I want a 5.0 home theater using my two already owned speakers. I need to buy a central speaker and a receiver.

I'd be really gratefull if anyone helped me solve this situation, since I've been doing a research for weeks and I'm still dumb. Also would like to hear anyone's opinion if it's a good idea or I should invest more, to better fit the speakers with receiver.

Thank you very much for reading, hopefully I'll get a few answer.

Yours faithfully

Martin

 

[Leemix]

1. Not an issue, the w ratings on speakers is basically what they are supposed to handle max before damage to them. (But its not as simple as that so its practically a meaningless spec)
2. Not an issue, speakers vary in resistance depending on the frequency and those who rate as 6 or 4ohm are often just more honest than those rated at 8.
3. The surround measurement with a singles screech tone looks like a one channel measured with the others silent in the surround mode. Also having it written for 6ohm instead of the normal standard 8ohm is cheating, it looks like it has more power than it does that way.

Going absolute cheapest on the AVR is usually not a great tactic, they might not sound very good and are not powerful, they are just made too cheaply for what they are supposed to be able to do. Go a little up and you get a much better product.(if you can)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[lovinthehd]

This is a better tool than using max wattage ratings of speakers. http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html

 

[focussmistr]

1. Not an issue, the w ratings on speakers is basically what they are supposed to handle max before damage to them. (But its not as simple as that so its practically a meaningless spec)
2. Not an issue, speakers vary in resistance depending on the frequency and those who rate as 6 or 4ohm are often just more honest than those rated at 8.
3. The surround measurement with a singles screech tone looks like a one channel measured with the others silent in the surround mode. Also having it written for 6ohm instead of the normal standard 8ohm is cheating, it looks like it has more power than it does that way.

Going absolute cheapest on the AVR is usually not a great tactic, they might not sound very good and are not powerful, they are just made too cheaply for what they are supposed to be able to do. Go a little up and you get a much better product.(if you can)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks a lot for the reply. This definitely made me more confident in choosing something more expensive, better quality I mean. I've done some research again and found a nice AVR from denon, AVR S650H. It lacks a bit in the wattage supply for the 100w speakers but as long as I will never do a max volume, not even a half, so it should be enough. The room I'm going to use for the theater is not huge, it's like a standart living room. I also thought about putting in some acoustic panels. There is no echo at all becase I have a lot of furniture around, but it might spice the overall quality a bit I guess. Do you think that the AVR is a good choice?

 

[Eppie]

Thanks a lot for the reply. This definitely made me more confident in choosing something more expensive, better quality I mean. I've done some research again and found a nice AVR from denon, AVR S650H. It lacks a bit in the wattage supply for the 100w speakers but as long as I will never do a max volume, not even a half, so it should be enough. The room I'm going to use for the theater is not huge, it's like a standart living room. I also thought about putting in some acoustic panels. There is no echo at all becase I have a lot of furniture around, but it might spice the overall quality a bit I guess. Do you think that the AVR is a good choice?

As was mentioned, you need not worry about the wattage rating on the speakers. That just tells you the maximum amount of power they can handle without being damaged. It is the speaker's sensitivity rating that will tell you how loud it will be at a certain wattage. The 70W per channel that the S650H supplies should be enough for moderate volume. General rule of thumb is that you need to double the power to get 3dB more volume so you would be getting in the 110W - 120W range to notice a significant difference but if the room is not large, or you are sitting relatively close to the speakers, you should be fine unless you like to play at reference levels (like in a movie theater).

Try the room without panels first. You may find that if you have carpeting or a large area rug and lots of furniture that the acoustics are ok. I would suggest posting pictures of the room and asking for advice before randomly trying panels. GIK Acoustics in Georgia make good panels and offer free consulting.