Newbie - Record Player and Speakers Question ....

[tscutty]

Hello board ... I am a newbie here and looking for some advice ...

I have a 2 parter ....

Part 1 ...
I am new to the Receiver and Speakers kind of deal and have been reading about Ohms and Impedance but can figure it out. I just picked up a Kenwood KR-710 Reciever on Ebay and 4 speakers I was given.

So the recommended Impedance for the Kenwood is 8 ohms (i believe from the manual). Does that mean all speakers need to be 8 ohms? Right now all 4 speakers are rated 8 ohms on the back. Is that wrong? Am i pushing the amp too much? I've been reading about it and seems like it could be wrong as people are finding out impedance ratings by certain calculations. Also do the size or wattage of the speakers matter as well? I have 2 big 3 foot speakers rated 8 ohms and 2 really small bookshelf speakers (probably about 2 inches tall) rated 8 ohms as well.

I use it with a record player as well as a connection adapter for a phone. It sounds great, but wanted to make sure i wasnt going to push the amp too much or damage the speakers. I usually dont go past half way on the receiver but rarely crank it to a little past half.

Part 2:
More simplified ... I have a new record player i bought a staples for $65 and an old MCS record player from the 80's. My Kenwood KR710 has a phono input as well as 2 Tape inputs. Am I better off using the new record player with the tape inputs or the old record player with the phono inputs?

The tape inputs seem to be ok for the moment, but not sure if i would get a richer, more vintage sound out of an older record player through the phono inputs.

Thanks in advance .... I can provide more details if needed. Thank you in advance.

[blackraven]

First of all, you need to be using the phono input on the receiver with the old receiver, not the tape inputs. As far as the new player, does it have a built in phono preamp? If not then you want to use the phono input

Your speakers are 8 ohms and the receiver should have no problem driving them with the only exception being if the speakers have a very low Sensitivity rating such as 86db or lower. There are other factors that come into play such as the RMS power rating of the amp or receiver ( i think it was rated at 28wpc at 8ohms), how loud you play your music. If you experience any distortion or clipping, turn the volume down. Make sure that you are using at least 16g speaker wire and if the runs are long I would look at 10-14g.

I am sure others will have some input.

[Mr Peabody]

As Blackraven mentioned if the speakers are rated at 8 and your receiver says to use 8, then you are fine. I'm not sure what the calculation is about, speaker impedance ratings are nominal to help match to amp or receiver, but the true impedance is reactive, never constant. What brand speakers?

I think your best sound would probably be the MCS. I wouldn't expect much from a turntable at $65.00. I'm assuming the MCS has a magnetic cartridge. Some of the entry tables of that day had ceramic cartridge and those wouldn't sound good no matter what.

Welcome to AR.