Wharfdale speakers not playing well with Marantz receiver

[simhill]

I recently picked up a pair of Wharfdale Evo-20 tower speakers and hooked them up to my Marantz SR4320. I'm not getting much sound out of the Wharfedale's. What is the problem? I know that the speakers are 6 ohm from 25-150 watts and the receiver is 2x80 watts, but I read on different forums that a decent receiver shouldn't have much problem driving 6 ohm speakers on two channels as long as you aren't cranking up the volume.

The receiver is refurb and I discovered that the switched AC outlet is no good recently, but not before the 2 year warranty was up. Also this receiver has been driving a set of Infinity Studio Monitor 165s while I saved up for better speakers and those still put out good sound.

I've used regular cheapy speaker wire and also 8' of DIY Cat 5 twisted cable (version 1 from Thomas Goldsworthy's Speaker Cable Faceoff 3 - The DIY Shootout post from this forum originally posted April 30 2005) and it didn't make much difference. If I try to get more than the moderately quiet volume coming from the speakers the receiver shuts down.

Any help?

 

[j_garcia]

6 Ohms will not be a problem with most Marantz.

The Wharfedales are 88dB sensitivity. So assuming the Infinities are much higher than that, that could very quickly account for the difference in output levels. Meaning, though they say they aren't a difficult load to drive, if the sensitivities are VERY different, then you will more or less need to crank it higher to get to the same level.

88dB isn't really low though, so I would suspect there is a problem with the receiver except for the fact that you say the Infinities still work fine.

Speaker cable will make zero difference as long as it is of sufficient AWG for the load and length and based on what you said, no more than 14AWG would be necessary.

Any chance you have another receiver or friend with a receiver who can test one or both of these speakers? How about if you connect only one of the Wharfedales?

 

[markw]

All speakers sound different and appeal to different tastes. Receivers, OTOH, sound 99.9% the same.

IOW, if you don't like that combnation, odds are the receiver is fine: You just don't like the sound of those particular speakers, and that's perfectly fine. Just because many people rave about a speaker doesn't guarantee you will like them.

That's a possibility when buying them based only on what one reads about them.

 

[markw]

Addendum:

I just noticed you said the receiver shuts down at high volumes with these speakers using both types of speaker wires. Since you say it ran other speakers just fine, the possibiity that the speakers are faulty arises.

Send 'em back.

 

[simhill]

I might have had two things going. First, I took off two of the four cat 5 wires (8 feet in length) and now the receiver doesn't shut down. Before it would shut down at a volume that you could calmly talk over. I remember reading that the Cat 5 wires have tremendous capacitance, so maybe it was causing my reciever to clip.

The other issue is me getting used to a much bigger space (12 feet across, 28 long and ceiling sloping from 14 to 20 high!). I used to play my infinitys at 60-65 Db of attentuation on the Marantz which was loud enough to hear music over my kid's chatter at the other end of the room and now have to turn the Marantz to 40-45 Db. The Inifinitys are still at least 50% louder than the Wharfedales but I guess that is just the differences between speakers?

But I am happy now that I can get the speakers up to party loudness without the receiver clipping.

 

[markw]

Two isues

I've read that, as you've stated, that cat 5 wires can have very high capatance but they are also notorious for vanishing low inductance. This second issue has caused more problems than the first with some amps but I'm surprised the Marantz is suceptable to this. I guess the more stress you put on the amp, the more likely it is to be prone to this.

As for the higher db level on your amp with the new speakers, the differing sensitivities of the speakers involved can easily explain that away. The lower the sensitivity pf the speaker, the higher the "db" "number you'll have to play the receiver for the same loudeness level as you would for speakers with a higher sensitivity number.

Now that the issues are worked out and explained away, do they sound "better" than your old speakers?

 

[Rickster71]

I wonder if you have a wire whisker that's shorting to the frame.
Even with the DIY CAT-5 cable, it's possible that one of the colors (stripes / solid) got mixed up.

 

[j_garcia]

I've heard a pair of Diamond 9s on a Marantz stereo receiver and I have to say I thought it sounded very good, so I can imagine the Evos would do well too.

Yeah, a stray strand could also very easily cause this issue as well.