16 Ohm Center Speaker Advice/Question

[cashutt]

My midi system has support for a centre speaker, so I thought I'd get one to improve the bass and the surround. Problem is it says on the back it needs 16 ohms and I can only find 8 ohms centres, also the connectors are those round type like you use for connecting seperates together not standard wires.
Its quite an old sterio, a Sony MHC-2800 (http://members.tripod.co.uk/cashutt/Sony-MHC-2800.jpg) if thats any help.
Basically does anyone know where I can find a cheap 16ohm centre speaker.

Cheers
Chris

[homerjhandley]

Youcould buy 2 and wire them up on series, that would give you 16Ohm.

[lynx]

I'll bet if you open the speaker cabinet up you'll find it is not a 16 ohm driver that is fitted. That load is achieved by adding a resistor,you may have to do the same to get what you want.

[MikeK]

If you must use a 16ohm centre speaker, just buy a 10W 8ohm resistor from Maplins for about 30p, and put it in series into the speaker cable (doesn't matter whether you put it in the + wire or the - wire)


eg


AMP SPKR

+ ----------- 8R ------------------- +

- ----------------------------------- -


It will reduce the volume output of an 8ohm speaker so it may be an idea to get a centre with a higher sensitivity (dB rating)than the other speakers.

There are pros and cons to doing this, but the explanation may be a bit long winded - I'll only bother posting that if anyone's interested.