Brian Posted April 27, 2005 Share Posted April 27, 2005 Without a schematic in front of me I can only guess as to what the 4/8 Ohms switch on the amp is really doing. However, there are a few clues in the manual... To deliver 500W into 4 Ohms you need an amp that will deliver 65 volts peak on it's output and deliver a current of 11A rms. To deliver 500W into 8 Ohms you need an amp that will deliver 90 volts peak on it's output and deliver a current of 8A rms. But if you connect this amp to a 4 Ohm load it'll try to deliver 1kW, a current of 16A rms. This is a bad thing, the power supply will get hot/fail and the output stage will get hot/fail. I suspect that A&H have put in an amp with a voltage rating for 8 Ohms and a current rating for 4 Ohms and that the switch simply tailors the protection and gain. In the manual it says...Set the rear panel slide switch to match the impedance of the speakers used. Use the combined impedance value if you are connecting speakers in series or parallel. Choose the nearest match if the value is not exactly 4 or 8 ohms. Note that no damage will be done if the switch is left in the wrong position. However, you may not benefit from the full capability of the amplifier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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