Best Of

For what it's worth, here's a snippet from an Audioholics review from 2004:"The Denon AVR-3805 didn't appear to break a sweat driving the 4-ohm impedance presented by the RBH Sound 1266-LSEs and 661-LSE speakers. In fact, the rated 120 watts per channel was sufficient enough to drive the Reference 3 System speakers to a steady 97dB SPL at the listening position without any audible distortion."

agingboomer wrote: »

For what it's worth, here's a snippet from an Audioholics review from 2004:"The Denon AVR-3805 didn't appear to break a sweat driving the 4-ohm impedance presented by the RBH Sound 1266-LSEs and 661-LSE speakers. In fact, the rated 120 watts per channel was sufficient enough to drive the Reference 3 System speakers to a steady 97dB SPL at the listening position without any audible distortion."

Yes the 3805 got very good reviews. It is one of the few that passed the full range tests that only dropped from 120wpc to 90wpc all channels driven. It also didn't clip with 2ch until after almost 170 wpc IIRC.
Either way the LSi15 starts at 4ohm and drops lower, that may be where the trouble starts. Driving 4ohm or lower loads x 5 or more it will run out of gas. I do know mine would get very hot when driving my SDA 2a speakers no where near 97db. The SDA 2a starts at 4 ohm and drops to almost 3 ohm during its operating range.