Is it safe to do so?

I still have two weeks for me to go for an exchange.

I asked around and I received mixed reviews. The top engineer at the company where I work at the moment told me it will be fine to do so but a quick websearch told me it can possibly damage the speakers

Thanks a lot Linux Questions!!

Could you not put a 2 ohm resister in the circuit?

I've done it before. Unless you have some high end system or you wish to run it very high amplitude it should be OK.

I've seen speakers from 2 to 16 ohms typically.

There is sometimes a jumper for matching it. You could run four speakers so that two are in series for each channel.

It won't hurt the speakers. You most likely won't develop full resistance/impedance for the amp to work at full output.

If you are worried then exchange them.

While there is likely enough protective circuitry and impedance in the amp to not be a problem, and also the speakers may not care much, my guess is that you're changing them to attain better, and louder audio in your car, and thus care for more than the manufacturer's audio solution. Therefore you should put in the effort to buy the correctly matched components, versus install these with added resisters to properly match the impedance. The difference being is that the energy goes somewhere. Some portion of it will go to a resister. Plus your addition of a resister may also add noise. Just some

Just don't crank it up - might toast your amp(s) because you are causing a higher current draw than the amp was designed to handle, unless as others have mentioned, the protective circuitry can handle it.

I have tried this at home and was afraid to turn it up at all - I don't want to fry my amps so in my case will need to get 8 ohm speakers instead of 4. Just don't have an extra $2k or $3k laying around...

You should consider that when the speaker load is but 2 ohms that even a 6 foot run of speaker wire has enough internal resistance to become a substantial percentage of the load the amplifier 'sees". The same proportion of amplifier power will then be lost as heat in the wire instead of making sound. To grasp this specific application, common 22 gauge speaker wire amounts to around 16 ohms per 1000 feet, or .16 ohms per 10 feet, which is almost 10% of a 2 ohm speaker. One solution is to use heavier gauge speaker wire but it is cheaper and easier to just get a speaker whose impedance matches the amp in the first place.

Counter to this problem is that (this is oversimplification but the gist is close enough) a solid state amplifier will produce twice the power into half the resistance/impedance. However some circuit designs and components will lose stability beyond a point so it is essential to get the specs to determine whether the amp you are using can operate at the load you'd prefer to use. So the serious, complete answer is it can work very well but it can also be a disaster. It depends on a number of factors with the specific amplifier being the major factor. In short, get the specs.

Good explanation, thank you. My home stereo uses 4 or 8 gauge (large) in equal runs of 10 feet. I have 2 solid state amps that I can only use one of right now: they are 4 ohm in non-bridged mode and 8 ohm in bridged mode. Would love to use both in a dual mono set up but speakers are 4 ohm and I am not willing to fry something...

sevendogbsd where do you get connectors that can handle 8 gauge let alone 4 gauge? 4 Gauge is welding cable and is almost 1/4 inches in diameter. For reference that is the diameter of Phone Plugs and Jacks, not minis, not Phono, but PHONE plugs like you may have seen in old-timey films of early telephone operators handling those plugs to manually connect phone lines, also used for electric guitar. I use 10 gauge speaker cable for sub-woofers and woofers, and 12 Ga for mids and highs and it's a tight fit even in banana plug connectors.

I use Nakamichi banana plugs and the cable is 8 gauge, just looked it up. I understand how big it is, I bought it over 30 years ago. Works fine and fits in the banana plugs perfectly. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LX0OISK..._t1_B00G7QDVRU. I am driving 2 500 watt Polk audio SDA 2As with a Carver 500 watt M 1.0t. If I had a pair of 8 ohm speakers, I'd be driving them with 2 Carver M 1.0t's in bridged mono mode at 1000 watts.

Nice. Well you certainly have zero worries about power loss in those cables :^D Decent system! Is it for music listening? home theater? gaming?

My current system is mostly a bit more modest at a total of ~1300 watts but divided up between 3 x Stereo amplifiers since it employs active crossovers in a Tri-Amped system. My sub-woofer is a simple EV dual coil 12 inch, mids (the weakest link) 2 x 6.5inch in a time-aligned cabinet w/ (the best part) real ribbon tweets. It does all 3 services since the only way I can listen to anything at the volumes I like, anytime I want, is in an isolated "Office" but the upside is I get to also game on it through source switching that includes my PC.

The best dedicated music listening system for home use I ever experienced was 1800 watts of MacIntosh power through a set of JBL 4355 Pro Studio Monitors. For reference it was very similar to the system in the video below but was not digital. I thought you might enjoy a drool-worthy look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fNPPjfAzR0

Wow, talk about big! No, home system, music listening only. My plan is to get a DAC so I can stream flacs or wavs from my NAS to it. I have a 5 disc changer but being able to listen without getting up and changing discs would be nice. I really should get some new speakers but I do like these Polks - they don't do very well for heavy metal but I love them with classical and jazz.

MacIntosh is amazing but a little out of my budget I really need to head to my local audio store though and listen to some new speakers - sound from speakers is so subjective; what one person thinks is awesome another thinks is terrible.

Regarding the subjective nature of speaker systems, I suppose I have to admit that it is true since I've never liked Bose systems and they have enjoyed considerable popularity. My problem with them is that Bose designed speakers to provide what their studies showed made the most initial impact on potential buyers which was by no means a "transparent" sound. This made them a big hit on the salesroom floor because first time, casual listeners felt "blown away" by the old sales cliche "sell the sizzle, not the steak". The problem is of course one doesn't eat the sizzle, it just evokes an emotional impact that seems attractive. Once home the buyer ends up 'starving". Specific to the listening experience and Bose, what tends to happen is what blows one away in the store becomes literally tiresome with anything approaching extended listening.

Having spent most of my life in the music business I prefer really flat, transparent reproduction speakers that afford me a repeatable, smooth baseline that I can color with EQ for specific application if and when I so desire, but easily return to the baseline at the very least as a starting point. If you've ever worked with a modern receiver I'm sure you're familiar with the use of "Profiles" like "Small Hall", "Large Hall", "Stadium", "Rock", "Classical", "Orchestral", etc etc etc and those are almost entirely EQ and selective delay settings that add or subtract "color".

Profiles make it not only easy but wise to choose very flat response speakers and then find which colors work for you for a given material or application. I'm going to assume that you are something more and above a casual listener since I've owned some Polk Audio gear and their speakers are rather impressively transparent.... by no means cheap, but excellent bang for the buck. The flip side of that coin I can characterize with Bang & Olufsen gear which seems to me overpriced and far more about styling than performance. I subscribe to "Form Follows Function", instead.

In a fairly similar price range and bang for buck to Polk Audio speakers is the long-lived, dedicated to performance powerhouse that is Klipsch. I hope you get to listen to some of their systems. They won't knock you out on the salesroom floor but they are precise and transparent as well as extremely efficient so they tend to perform better with a given wattage than many lesser efficient systems... AND they will never tire your ears/brain but are perfectly adaptable to Profiles, whether manually dialed in or pre-programmed.

I couldn't agree more about Bose - to me they were all hype and no substance; definitely not a good listening experience, at least for me. I bought my Polk's 31 years ago because I liked they way they sounded in the store listening room. I was young then but I still like they way they sound. I tend to listen to everything flat, with no modifications (EQ, etc) to the sound. Whether good or bad, it's how I've always listened to music on this system.

I am very intrigued by Klipsch. The only Klipsch speakers i have ever heard in person are the KG4's. I see a lot of Klipsch vintage speakers (Forte', Cornwall, Heresy) available out there, plus I am interested in listening to the RF7-III's to see how they sound. I am avoiding going to our local audio store to listen to them because then I'll probably want them...:-)

I have also never listened to a dual mono system - I now have 2 amps capable of this, but as I mentioned in a previous post, the Polks are not able to run in this configuration. More motivation perhaps to look at different speakers...

UPDATE!!

I will be going with 2 ohms speakers.

Rockford Fosgate R165X3

I accept that I cannot expect sounds that come from USD$500+ speakers, but I cannot tell anyways, and I like the fact it's a 3 way speaker

Bose still makes speakers and a few models still occasionally show up on "Best Of" lists but never on audiophile lists and I think with very good reason. They depend on two very undependable design "features" that I cannot abide. They use stamped sheet metal frame speakers which only have modest viability on very small sizes and still rely heavily on offset designs to provide reflected sound which obviously depend on the near infinite variables of room size, geometry, and speaker location for whatever dubious value they might have.

While speaker design has been highly refined and some amazing smaller speakers do exist, there is simply no substitute in the very least as a subwoofer for size and solidity. I require at least a cast frame 10 inch speaker and prefer a 12 or 15 for subwoofers. Speakers made like that will sound flat and great for a very long time.

While mentioning companies that have survived more than a decade, I should point out that Polk has undergone considerable change and now offers budget speakers. They still make some really good ones but a few key design people have moved on to form their own companies. One standout spinoff from Polk is GoldenEar.

I've heard the Klipsch RF-7 IIIs and they are truly superb. I would be tempted myself if I had the space where they wouldn't appear out of place. For a little less expense and a more flexible environment I am recently rather interested in these

http://www.pinnaclespeakers.com/bd650_ii.html

Dual Mono is my preferred setup as any crosstalk creates "smear" which can reduce the clarity in a broad spectrum of frequencies but is most noticeable in upper midrange and highs. I have both Vacuum Tube and Solid State Monoblock power amps to toy around with as well as an incredibly discrete, gorgeously designed and built all tube dual-mono preamp. It's only downside is that it requires an expensive DAC to allow interface with my digital gear but the end result is glorious.

I know my prejudice against 2 ohm speakers isn't entirely justified but one objective fact, seen here in this thread, is they limit some modes and many additions as well as require fat cabling. I like flexibility and would prefer to keep my cabling no thicker than 10 gauge although the gauge isn't a major concern. It's partly because, awesome improvement or mere hype, I bought a rather large spool of Oxygen Free Copper 10 gauge speaker cable about 20 years ago and damn if I'm not going to use it