12 ohm impedence?

[ahcryky]

I have been looking for some surround speakers and came across some aperion. Since the shipping is free both ways and they give you a 30 day home trial I want to see how they will match my paradigm 40's and 570. But I have never seen a speaker with a 12 ohm impedence and was wondering what that would mean and if that creates some kind of amplification problem. Any help would be great.

-jim

[David Meek]

12-ohm, eh? I don't think that'll produce any issues. If anything, it means the amps will see less of a load than your typical 8-ohm speaker.

[Kevin D]

You would want to look at the efficiency of them along with your existing speakers. Your amp will love 12ohm speakers, it has to work less but won't produce as much power.

You want to make sure your existing speakers aren't real efficient and these aren't highly in-efficient. If not, you could wind up with an large output difference.

Kevin D.

[ahcryky]

Thanks for the reply, I wasn't sure if that meant that it would be a drain on the amp or if I would have to turn the volume way up on the rears to match the rest of the set up.

-jim

[ahcryky]

You would want to look at the efficiency of them along with your existing speakers. Your amp will love 12ohm speakers, it has to work less but won't produce as much power.

You want to make sure your existing speakers aren't real efficient and these aren't highly in-efficient. If not, you could wind up with an large output difference.

Kevin D.

So if sensitivity is how you rate a speaker efficiency the paradigms are rated room-/-anechoic?(not sure what that is) 40's 92/89 and the 570 91/88. The aperion didn't have it stated for that model but all their other speakers were 86-90. The bookshelf that was pretty much just a single version of the bipole/dipole speaker was rated at 88. So would this create a problem?

-jim

[Kevin P]

Considering that most of Aperion's other speakers are rated 6-8 ohms, and only the dipole/bipole is rated at 12, they must have taken that into consideration in the design (e.g. efficiency).

Higher impedance is no problem for an amp, since it sees less load. However, you won't get as much power into them as your amp is rated, so you may have to jack the surrounds up higher than usual to compensate, depending on the efficiency and impedance of your other speakers.

BTW, I use those same Aperion surrounds in my setup, along with Aperion center and bookshelf back surrounds, along with Martin Logan SL3s for mains (4 ohm rated), and they blend nicely. I've had no issues with level matching. Of course, since surrounds are usually closer to your ears than the front/center, they aren't usually driven as loud.

P.S. You'll be pleasantly surprised with the sound of the Aperions. In other words, I think you'll like 'em.

[Kevin D]

You should be fine. Room rating is what you would use, anechoic is a room with no reflections (true speaker response). They're close enough to make up for it with level adjustments.

What you wouldn't want is your mains to be 97 and the aperion's to be 82ish.

Kevin D.

[ahcryky]

Considering that most of Aperion's other speakers are rated 6-8 ohms, and only the dipole/bipole is rated at 12, they must have taken that into consideration in the design (e.g. efficiency).

Higher impedance is no problem for an amp, since it sees less load. However, you won't get as much power into them as your amp is rated, so you may have to jack the surrounds up higher than usual to compensate, depending on the efficiency and impedance of your other speakers.

BTW, I use those same Aperion surrounds in my setup, along with Aperion center and bookshelf back surrounds, along with Martin Logan SL3s for mains (4 ohm rated), and they blend nicely. I've had no issues with level matching. Of course, since surrounds are usually closer to your ears than the front/center, they aren't usually driven as loud.

P.S. You'll be pleasantly surprised with the sound of the Aperions. In other words, I think you'll like 'em.

Thanks, that's good to hear! In a perfect world I would get the 470 adp's, but $1100 compared to $490, and a free home test, can't pass it up!

[ahcryky]

You should be fine. Room rating is what you would use, anechoic is a room with no reflections (true speaker response). They're close enough to make up for it with level adjustments.

What you wouldn't want is your mains to be 97 and the aperion's to be 82ish.

Kevin D.

Thanks Kevin, didn't know what the two ratings were. I'll try to let anyone know how these are and how they blend with paradigms if anyone is interested.

-jim