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Impedance question

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Willtexas07

New Member
I picked up a Kenwood KM992 amp today for $15 and am interested in hooking it into my Pioneer SX737 receiver and running 2 sets of speakers (Polk Audio 10B Monitors and Radio Shack Nova 7B). On the back of the amp there is a selector for speakers 8 ohms or more vs less than 8 ohms. The Polks have an impedance of 6 and the Radio Shacks are 8. Can I run both sets of speakers with the amp or am I going to run into problems? Thanks a ton, still learning here!
 
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Not familiar with the Kenwood but is it a straight power amp or integrated amp with controls? Also, does the 737 have pre out main in jacks?
 
Your 737 does not have pre out jacks so you cannot use it to drive your Kenwood. Vice versa, your Kenwood is just a straight power amp and cannot drive the 737.

Some people will say that you can use the headphone jack on your 737 to drive the Kenwood because it is not as hot as the main outputs. This is true and it will work, but you have to be very careful with the volume as this is not a line level output, but taken directly from the speaker outputs. Honestly, the best and proper hook up would be to use something with a variable line level output to drive the Kenwood and this would be something like a powered separate preamp with tone controls (or without) your choice.

As it stands now, you can use all four speaks on your pioneer but it may dip below 4 ohms if you're not careful, and that is not a good thing as the 737 will really heat up if you crank it.

Here's what I would do, and many others have done this also which works perfectly normal. Pick the pair of speakers that you think sound the best with your 737. Use those solely with your 737.

Browse online auctions and check local thrifts for a preamp only to drive the Kenwood. With this preamp driving the Kenwood along with the other pair of speakers, you now have another system right there in itself. You can connect both together with RCA interconnects from the 737's tape out or rec out to the Kenwood via the preamp to an aux, tape, or cd input. You will have two separate volume and tone controls to contend with for each pair of speakers, but this is the only way that you can use what you have there without having having any main out or pre in capabilities.

The only other thing that you can try with the set up you have, is to connect the speakers which sound best with the 737, and use the 737's headphone out to go in to the Kenwood via a 1/4 inch stereo to stereo RCA patchcord, and have the other speakers connected to the Kenwood amp. This connection/hook up will allow you to use your 737 as the main control to drive both the 737 & the Kenwood along with both sets of speakers. Now experiment and have fun.
 
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Wow, I am glad I asked the question and really glad I got expert advice! I vote in favor of the preamp idea to drive the Kenwood. Having 2 sets of volume and tone controls, in my opinion is a positive. I use the Nova 7B speakers to fill in the bass that my Polk 10B speakers lack. The seperate controls would allow me to tailor that mix better than running both off the Pioneer SX737 alone. Also, as you stated, it would put less stress on the receiver. Thank you very much for the info, I probably would have fried something!
 
On the Kenwood amp, I would have the speaker setting at 8Ω or more just to be safe. The 8Ω or less position would be for 6Ω or 4Ω speakers. You could probably set it for which sounds best and it wouldn't hurt anything, but I would only run one pair of speakers. More power! :rockon:
 
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