[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message
ups.com

OK may be a dumb question, but could you use resistors to
up the resistance of 4 Ohm speakers so they could be
driven by a 8Ohm amp???

Sure you could, and this was done in some commercial amps in the early days
of solid state. I had such an amp - a Heath AA-22. One day I decided to
drive a pair of AR3s (4 ohms) on the 8 ohm taps. It was a low-powered amp
and easy to overdrive. The next day I ordered up a new set of output
transistors. Early SS amps didn't have appropriate protection built-in.

These days, good amps always have appropriate protection built-in. Not only
can good modern amps rated at 8 ohms drive 4 ohm speakers without failing,
they can drive 0-ohm shorted speaker leads without failing.

Most amps that are rated at 8 ohms are rated at 8 ohms so that they can
survive continuous-since wave signal testing on the bench. In practical use
the mostly likely problem would be overheating, but that is improbable
unless you are pushing the @!$##!! out of them.

If you're a DJ or a hard rock band, then don't use your power amp to drive
speakers with too low of a rated impedance. If you are a typical audiophile,
don't sweat the small stuff.