I have an old Kenwood KA-7100 stereo integrated amplifier hooked up to four Smaller Advent speakers (doubled). Each pair is wired in parallel, for what I figure is effectively 4-ohm impedance.
I recently acquired an Onkyo TX-SR302 entry-level 5.1 channel receiver. Now I need to either integrate it with what I've already got or acquire six more speakers. I've had some ideas, but I don't know if they're reasonable. Any thoughts on these:
1) The Onkyo manual says to use 8- to 16-ohm speakers. Does this mean I have to give up my doubled Advents? I'd hate to do that.
The Kenwood can handle two sets of stereo speakers. What if I re-connected one pair of Advents to each output, then the Onkyo also to one pair (with an A/B switch to control which amplifier fed that pair)? Then I could route the Onkyo's sub-woofer output to the Kenwood.
The upshot being: for music, I still have my old configuration - Kenwood and four Advents. For movies, the Onkyo drives a pair as the front speakers, and the Kenwood drives the other pair as passive sub-woofers.
The Onkyo can handle two sets of speakers as well (one 5.1 and one stereo set), so I suppose I could connect the Advents to both outputs of the Onkyo as well. Still, the idea of using one pair as passive sub-woofers powered by the Kenwood intrigues my penny-pinching mind.
2) Would the Cambridge Soundworks Model Six speakers be a reasonable choice for surround speakers? Like the Advents they were designed by Henry Kloss as non-ported two-way speakers. They don't go as far down (55Hz) as the Advents, but does that matter in surrounds? I'm wondering if they're the best tonal match I'm likely to be able to find for the Advents.