Musical Fidelity M6i and the PSB Synchrony One

To Doug Schneider,

For you it might be a really stupid question, but I'm new in the audio department and it would be really important if you could answer this. I'm planning on buying this equipment next:

Musical Fidelity M6i integrated amplifier
Musical Fidelity M6CD CD player

I want to use them with PSB's Synchrony One speakers. The question is: The M6i is rated for 8 ohms but the loudspeaker is 4 ohms. Are these things compatible? Am I going to face some problems using this combination? Thank you very much.

Eduardo Garcia

It's not a stupid question at all because PSB's Synchrony One is a bit difficult for some amplifiers to drive. Its average impedance is 4 ohms, but it actually dips down to about 3 ohms at some frequencies. You can see this in our measurements of it. Some amplifiers won’t drive a 3- or 4-ohm load well. In fact, one amplifier I used with it distorted quite badly when I pushed the volume too high. You’re right to be concerned.

I looked at the specifications for Musical Fidelity’s M6i integrated amplifier and it’s rated to deliver 200Wpc into 8 ohms but, curiously, there is no rating for 4 ohms. Frankly, I’m not sure what this means. The amplifier might be stable into 3 or 4 ohms, but it might not be. My suggestion is to contact Musical Fidelity directly and send them the link to our measurements (which you can get if you click the hyperlink in the paragraph before this one) and ask them if they feel it will work. They should know how their amplifier will perform with such a load. . . . Doug Schneider