Luxman Receiver with Cambridge SoundWorks Ensemble Speakers

[maried]

I recently had to take my Luxman R-1040 Receiver (purchased in 1978!) in for repair because one of the channels died. The repair guy said he just had to replace a couple of fuses, but mentioned that we needed to be sure that our speakers were the correct impedance, otherwise we might have the same thing happen again in the future. When we asked for help with figuring it out, he told us he'd do it for a fee, so we left and decided to figure it out for ourselves.

We have 2 sets of Cambridge SoundWorks Ensemble speakers that we've been using, and had been using for years with no problems, so we're not convinced they're the issue. These speakers are a Subwoofer-satellite pair that are the following according to the documentation: "Each low-frequency unit/satellite pair operates as a system in parallel with a nominal impedance of 6 ohms." The Luxman has a notice on the back saying that impedance should not be less than 4 ohms, so we'd assumed that we were fine. However, now we're unclear as to whether the entire system has an impedance of 6, or does each unit (the subwoofer & satellite) have an impedance of 6 ohms, in which case, having them in parallel makes it only 3 ohms.

Our current setup involves hooking up the subwoofer to the speaker terminals on the receiver, and then running the satellite off the subwoofer. My receiver has the option for Speakers A & B, and we have a subwoofer/satellite pair hooked up to each of these - so 4 pairs of speakers that somewhat simulate surround sound.

Any advice from anyone who might know the details about these speakers?

Thanks!

Marie

 

[stereogeek]

I had those exact speakers many moons ago. As I recall they said each sub and satellite for each channel was a 6 ohm load, they were to be wired in parallel. I think they were a "difficult" 6 ohm load and actually went down to at least 4 ohms. I blew up a receiver and an amp while driving them. Using 2 sets on each channel is asking for trouble in my opinion. A receiver or amp that can comfortably drive a 4 ohm load would be a great start if you don't turn it up real loud. If these are setup properly they have great bass and great imaging. I had my satellites mounted on tripods and the subs to the sides. The guy that bought them brought his receiver over and it shut down on thermal overload. He took the speakers anyway and bought an Adcom amp to drive them. There is an owners manual online at manualslib.com. Good Luck. BTW , they would be 3 ohms for each channel for 2 subs and 2 sats on each channel.

 

[joeinid]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[maried]

The crazy thing is that we've had them hooked up this way for about 10 years with no obvious problems. The room they're in is pretty live so we never really turn it up too loud. But we also have run our TV through the monitor port on the receiver so that we didn't have to buy a sound bar. The subs are in the front corner of the room, buried behind furniture, but we have 2 satellites in the front of the room, and 2 on either side in the middle of the room.

So if we connect them in series, instead of parallel, it sounds like we should be okay. My Luxman receiver has been such a workhorse over the years with the only problem being the occasional blown fuse. If I recall correctly, there was always one channel that would die and I was told it was just a fuse that had blown. These were not the original speakers so not sure what caused that problem in the past.

We just noticed a few months ago that one of the channels was out again, so figured it was the same problem. The repair guy did say he had to replace 2 fuses and a transistor or resistor. The guy who used to do our repairs retired when Covid hit. It's unfortunate because he would have talked to us and made sure we didn't have a problem with our setup. Instead, this new guy, who's the only one we've been able to find in northern Vermont, was not terribly talkative and wouldn't even consider talking to us about our setup without us paying him.