So I bought a 20 year old Fisher RS636 Receiver at Goodwill yesterday.....

[Larro Darro]

The receiver was marked $19.99/ as is, no refunds. The fellow there said he had checked it and it worked. And since it was Tuesday, I would get a 25% Sr Cit discount, making it $15.00. {I'm a couple of years short of 55, but I do a lot of shopping at Goodwill. The ladies there give me the discount anyway}

It is a six channel surround sound system, but when I hooked it up, there was static and the right left balance wasn't equal. Most of the sound came out of the right speakers. Playing around with it, I found out if you turned off the surround and had straight stereo, the sound was fine, and the balance worked right. It is rated for 220 total watts, so you could say 100 watts per channel in stereo with 8 ohms impedance. I could just use to 8 ohm speakers and call it done, but I was wanting to rig up more than one on each channel. The problem of coarse is if you go too low with your impedance, you will burn up the amp in the receiver. {two 8 ohm speakers hooked in parallel is 4 ohms. They would put out more sound, but it could hurt your amp} If you go too high, you don't get the volume of sound. {two 8 ohm speakers hooked in series are 16 ohms. Sound output will not be as much, but should be safe for your amp} There is a way to hook up four speakers to each channel and keep the impedance at 8 ohms. It uses both parallel and series. So it halves it, then doubles it. But eight speakers take up a lot of space.

Anyway, I got to unpacking speakers tonight, trying to decide what to do. There are three rooms upstairs and each has a sound system. I may end up changing them around to find the best fit for the Fisher. I will add some photos in a few minutes. I have to get off this PC for now. I will post the pictures from my laptop in a few minutes.

I could use some advise on what the best system for each room is, and which speakers to use with the Fisher.

 

[Larro Darro]

This is the 'new' Fisher, the cause of me trying to figure out what to do. Here is a brief outline of what is where.


I had this Sony in the library, but it has a short. {maybe the broken glass should have been a clue} I traded an old receiver and a pair of speakers to a friend to fix it, but it's still got the short. Sometimes it will play for hours, and sounds great, but when it don't, it's a PITA. So I changed it with this home theater system. It sounds pretty good, but only has three inputs. It does have five speakers, as well as the sub woofer built into the amp. I kept the same four bookshelf speakers from the Sony, but had to add a fifth one. As you can see, space is an issue here.



I have this JVC 5.1 system in the media room {where I do most of my music recording on DVD's} It is a newer system and has small speakers. I was thinking of putting it in the library, putting the Fisher in the media room and the home theater system in the storage room. Then I could use the bookshelf speakers in the media room with the Fisher.



I had this older JVC and speakers in the storage room before I got the Fisher. It works fine, but is really big. The same for the speakers.



So here are some of the smaller 8 ohm speakers I unpacked tonight.



And with the bigger ones added. They would sound better, but the smaller ones will fit better.



The 6 ohm speakers are all smaller. Some of them are pretty good, too.



Only one set of 4 ohm in storage. I have six or eight of them hooked to another home theater system out in the barn. Trading them out for some of the 6 ohm might be the way to go.



And one good set of 3 ohm. I do have some cheaper ones that I didn't unpack.



As you can see, I have the speakers to do whatever I decide. It's just the deciding I'm having trouble with.

Edit: I changed pictures of the big speaker pile, but it kept the other picture anyway.

 

[SPIKER]

If you are intending to keep using the existing speaker then no, but if you were to look for some 4 ohm speakers then yes putting two 4 ohm speakers in series will get you the 8 ohms needed for the amp.

You could put in a large 4 ohm resistor series parallel with 2ea 8 ohm speakers but that would kill any extra you got out of the series speakers not knowing what it would do with the sound???

Mark

 

[Larro Darro]

I went out to the barn yesterday to count 4 ohm speakers. I think all seven of them are 4's but I didn't take them down to make sure. I could replace them with 6 ohm and still have good sound out there. The indoor/outdoor speakers are rated at 50 watts, {if they are the same as the ones in the house} but I doubt the little surround speakers can handle that much. Judging by the bird nest, I haven't been using the system very much this summer.

 

[troutsqueezer]

Static is not usually a symptom of component failure. It is more likely an oxidized contact somewhere, like in the wiper of a potentiometer. You might try buying a can of contact cleaner from Ray D. o'Shack and spray all the pots in the system, especially those in the surround circuit. Make sure the contact cleaner is the kind that has lubrication in it. That way you can hook up four 8 ohm speakers and put the receiver into four channel mode instead of surround mode.

 

[Larro Darro]

I will give that a try, Troutsqueezer. We have a little shop like a radio shack in Blountstown. I'll run by there on my way to work tomorrow. It would make it simpler if at least four of the channels would work right. Since the balance is right on 2 channels, but not on 4 or 6, it may be in the surround circuit. I will give it all a good cleaning. The RCA jacks on the back had to be cleaned, {I used head cleaner on a Q-tip, then a light touch with sandpaper} so the insides are likely in the same shape.

I was working in my barn today, listening to my Coby mp3 player through the home theater system out there. I like the Coby, but the volume isn't very loud. I just bought one of those $8 FM transmitter mp3 players for the truck. Since the truck was parked right outside the barn, I tried tuning it in on the old tuner. It came in fine, no static at all. I turned the sound off in the truck and listened to the mp3 inside. Not sure how far away it would work, but at ten feet it did alright. For a tailgate party or such, the cars on each side of you could play your mp3 through their radio.

 

[troutsqueezer]

If there are mechanical switches in there too, spray those as well, they can cause the problem sometimes.

 

[Larro Darro]

There are two push button switches for the speakers. One turns them on or off, and the other is for surround {A or B}. I'll clean them up when I get in from work tomorrow night. Looking at the picture above zoomed, I see the switches need a good dusting before anything else. I just worked on the jacks, haven't done any cleaning on the front side.

 

[murphy1244]

I still have a Marantz 1060 I have had since 10th grade cleaned my switches and sounds like new.

 

[Larro Darro]

I ran by to buy the cleaner on the way to work, and the store is now a music store, and it was closed. The bad thing is I was just across the street from Radio Shack last night when we were in Marianna. It will be Monday or Tuesday before I can get back up there. But I would not have had time to clean it until then anyway.