Onkyo TXSR506 and under powered speakers.

[WibXL]

At the moment I'm using an ancient Videologic Digitheatre set of 5.1 speakers plus matching decoder for my surround sound and a TV with only one DVI input. So far I've managed to get around lack of inputs by using a DVI switch and a separate toslink switch for the audio but I've reached the point where I don't have enough audio or video inputs and it's getting to be a pain to manually switch and swap inputs so I've been looking at getting an AV receiver.

I like the look of Onkyo's TXSR506 but I'm skint at the moment so it'd be a couple of months before I could afford it and even then it would just be the amp with no speakers at least for the time being so I wanted to know if it would be possible to use the speakers that I have as a stop gap solution.

The Onkyo is rated at 7 x 75 (8 ohms, RMS) whilst the speakers are 7.5watts at 4 ohms. I know that this wouldn't be an idle solution if it worked but for the time being it would be ok so long as the speakers would work and no damage would be caused to the amp.

Would this be possible?

 

[YellowSphere]

if the onkyo kicks out 75w at 8ohms then you can double that for four...I don't think your current ones are going to last very long.

 

[WibXL]

Looks like I need a new plan then. I do have a pair of Q Acoustics 1020s so I could use them for the time being provided that I can face going back to stereo...

 

[missinglink]

You should be ok with your 7.5 watt speakers for now! You might want to be gentle with the volume though but most amp damage comes from running power hungry speakers where the amp is put under strain from constantly running at full, not from a powerful amp running speakers such as yours.

Some power amps which can be rated at 250/500W but you would struggle to find speakers which are rated similarly.

The dangerous mismatch is where the speakers are a tough load for the amp to drive not the other way around generally.

If damage occurs it will be your speakers.