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Chorus II- 8ohm or 4ohm?


Imsjry

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Looks like the specs list the Chorus II as 8ohm speakers but I've read some posts that confused me about that.

 

If my amp has taps for 4 or 8, what do you guys recommend in a smaller living room for moderate/quiet listening levels? I did try both and honestly couldn't tell any difference but wasn't sure what sound quality that really impacts. 

 

Thanks all!

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Yeah i'm reading a bunch on this and can't find a definite answer. Best i've gathered is just to try it and see if i can tell any difference and that it is really amp dependent. I'm using a budget Yaqin MC84l tube amp. 

 

The back of the speakers themselves say 8ohm on the connectors. I've just swapped from the 4 to the 8 ohm taps on the amp and noticed it got louder immediately without adjusting the volume up. Of course louder isn't always better and its not like the 4ohm tap didn't give it more then enough volume control. My ultimate goal is to get the best overall sound at lower listening levels which is my primary listening mode. 

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1 hour ago, Imsjry said:

I've just swapped from the 4 to the 8 ohm taps on the amp and noticed it got louder immediately without adjusting the volume up. Of course louder isn't always better...

 

Well I'm no expert on output transformers but I do know enough to be at least somewhat dangerous with advice.  Not really.  It's been a while but I believe you'd find the 4 ohm tap is closer (in terms of windings) to the common, thus the 8 ohm tap is nearer the input voltage.  Should be twice as much voltage.  That would account for the volume levels you noted.

 

The overall speaker impedance is all over the place and you don't have a tap to match the values in the midrange anyway.  What's most important is the lower frequencies, and there the speaker is probably 6 ohms nominal, so pick your poison.  Whichever one the bass sounds less flabby.

 

If it's night and day different you'll be extremely lucky.  Otherwise it could take months and you'll never arrive at a "clearly better" connection scheme after countless trials.

 

My advice is that whichever one has better bass control at 4:00 PM on Sunday, November 3, 2019 is the one to stay with.

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by using the highest available tap you insure the amplifier has lots of resistance to push against and that will make your amp happy and more stable than a lower impedance, it also means that the full secondary of the transformer is loaded again your amplifier will be much happier with this arrangement. Multi tap output transformers are a consumer driven convenience "I want it all but I don't want to pay for it all kind of thing, they are not available because they make good design sense.

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Seems like the 8ohm taps are where mine are staying. The bass sounds a little fuller and the overall sound has a bit more life to it compared to the 4ohm. The only reason I asked was due to the plethora of posts mentioning using 4ohm taps with Tube amps and Klipsch. At least with this particular amp and Chorus II, 8ohm is where they will be.

 

Thanks for the replies all!

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