Could I hook up Klipsch GMX satellite speakers to a Logitech Z-5500 system?

[Slick5150]

I've had a set of Klipsch GMX 5.1 speakers for a few years now and have been really impressed with them. I got annoyed with the crappy control pod that they had though, so I dumped it and hooked all the speakers & sub up to an older Yamaha receiver I had lying around. No problems at all.

Flash forward to last week when the Yamaha receiver died. Coincidentally, a friend of mine was looking to unload a set of Logitech Z-5500 speakers. So I wound up buying them for dirt cheap, but frankly I think they're lacking in the mid and upper range a bit compared to the Klipsch speakers.

So.. I'm curious if hooking the Klipsch satellites up to the Logitech system would work right? I can see some potential issues with the crossover settings not being the same as the Klipsch would like, but then again I had them hooked up to a standard receiver and that didn't hurt anything. The reason I'd like to do this is that I'm actually pretty impressed with the Logitech sub and the control pod is nice and small (compared to having the bulky Yamaha receiver sitting on my computer desk).

The other option I have would be to replace the receiver and keep the Klipsch setup hooked up that way.

Any thoughts?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

The Klipsch satellites may be 4 ohms rather than the logitech's 8 ohms.

This may mean that the logitech's amp could have a hard time driving them which could lead to issues (overheating, shutting down, fuse blown, death )

You'd probably be ok trying it though.

What were the circumstances of the Yamaha's death? Could it have been playing the system loudly and possibly death due to the low impedence speakers?

 

[Slick5150]

The Yamaha worked for about 2 years hooked up to them, so I doubt that caused it.

I'm admittedly a bit uneducated about the different ohms some speakers operate at, but my Yamaha didn't have any problem driving them.

But I see your point that if the Logitech's are 8 ohm, the amp in the subwoofer may not particularly like being hooked up to the 4 ohm Klipsch speakers.


Side question: Is there such a thing as just a 5.1 amp? I really don't need all the features of a receiver to drive the Klipsch setup like I have been (1 input only, no video processing being done at all). I really just need something that takes either the analog inputs from my soundcard or a DD/DTS over Optical, and outputs it to the speakers/subwoofer. I've just never seen something like that that isn't a full blown receiver. My options with receivers seem to either be get something cheap and be dissapointed in the sound quality compared to the Yamaha I had hooked up, or get something nice with a lot of inputs and features that I have no need for.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
The Yamaha worked for about 2 years hooked up to them, so I doubt that caused it.

I'm admittedly a bit uneducated about the different ohms some speakers operate at, but my Yamaha didn't have any problem driving them.

But I see your point that if the Logitech's are 8 ohm, the amp in the subwoofer may not particularly like being hooked up to the 4 ohm Klipsch speakers.


Side question: Is there such a thing as just a 5.1 amp? I really don't need all the features of a receiver to drive the Klipsch setup like I have been (1 input only, no video processing being done at all). I really just need something that takes either the analog inputs from my soundcard or a DD/DTS over Optical, and outputs it to the speakers/subwoofer. I've just never seen something like that that isn't a full blown receiver. My options with receivers seem to either be get something cheap and be dissapointed in the sound quality compared to the Yamaha I had hooked up, or get something nice with a lot of inputs and features that I have no need for.

Yeah, there are just amps (I'm using one with my setup), but they tend to be more expensive than receivers so it's kind of pointless if you're trying to save money.

This is one of the cheap ones
http://www.emotiva.com/lpa1.html

You'd still want to have control over bass management and such though, so you'd still probably want something between the computer and amp unless you have enough control over that with the soundcard.

 

[Slick5150]

Yeah, I kind of figured a dedicated amp would wind up costing more than just getting a good receiver.

I may just try hooking up the Klipsch speakers to the Logitech sub and see if they get along ok.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
Yeah, I kind of figured a dedicated amp would wind up costing more than just getting a good receiver.

I may just try hooking up the Klipsch speakers to the Logitech sub and see if they get along ok.

It will probably work fine. I'm not even sure if the Klipsch sats are 4 ohms.

Keep an eye on the logitech amp's heat and listen if distortion is getting audible. I would take it easy for a while before cranking it just to make sure there are no issues at low to medium volumes before pushing it.

 

[Slick5150]

I think they are 4 ohm. I seem to remember looking that up at one point.

In any case, agreed that I'll need to keep an eye on it to make sure its not causing problems.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
The Klipsch satellites may be 4 ohms rather than the logitech's 8 ohms.

This may mean that the logitech's amp could have a hard time driving them which could lead to issues (overheating, shutting down, fuse blown, death )

You'd probably be ok trying it though.

What were the circumstances of the Yamaha's death? Could it have been playing the system loudly and possibly death due to the low impedence speakers?

I don't really understand your conclusion that the logitech's amp would have a hard time driving. The logitech amp was made to drive 8Ohms speakers, meaning higher impedance, meaning it has to pump out more power to drive the 8Ohm speakers.
This means if the 4Ohms klipisch speakers were hooked up, the logitech amp only has to work half as hard.

Either way, you can always get a resistor to hook up to the klipisch speaker cables so that the satellites become 8Ohms.

People do it all the time in the headphone world to increase the impedance of their headphones, which give them more accuracy.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: astroidea

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
The Klipsch satellites may be 4 ohms rather than the logitech's 8 ohms.

This may mean that the logitech's amp could have a hard time driving them which could lead to issues (overheating, shutting down, fuse blown, death )

You'd probably be ok trying it though.

What were the circumstances of the Yamaha's death? Could it have been playing the system loudly and possibly death due to the low impedence speakers?

I don't really understand your conclusion that the logitech's amp would have a hard time driving. The logitech amp was made to drive 8Ohms speakers, meaning higher impedance, meaning it has to pump out more power to drive the 8Ohm speakers.
This means if the 4Ohms klipisch speakers were hooked up, the logitech amp only has to work half as hard.

Either way, you can always get a resistor to hook up to the klipisch speaker cables so that the satellites become 8Ohms.

People do it all the time in the headphone world to increase the impedance of their headphones, which give them more accuracy.

Lower impedance means that the amp is going to have to deliver more current than it's designed to.

Go google some articles about speaker impedance and how it affects amps.