well...a low end receiver...directly equates to less head room. My first instinct says not a good idea. Plus am not sure what can be achieved in terms of better effects with four surrounds for movies, as surrounds only output small percent of total sound effects. It is totally a different matter that having surrounds definitely makes significant difference
here are some links...
An in depth technical discussion!
Loudspeaker Impedance, Series & Parallel Connection Basics — Reviews and News from Audioholics
Quote from the summary...
If you connect two identical speakers in electrical series but acoustically in parallel, there'll be a net gain of 0 dB when compared to a single driver system's output. Connect two drivers both in electrical & acoustical parallel and the overall net gain would be 6dB compared to the single speaker connection
This means you dont gain much by series connection in terms of loudness, while for parallel it becomes 6dB louder.
But, this is important --> this means your load at the speaker terminals is reduced, which draws a higher current, and when you consider your amp has low headroom, and now if you push the amp with the *appropriate source*, i would not bet on it to work out well always.
But again, like I said earlier, surrounds are part timers and never fully involved, but over loaded for even a few seconds can damage your output section if protection does not kick in(if it exixts), and it is not a guarantee that protection will always kick in for higher current that it is not designed for. But in your case it looks like you have 2 8 ohm speakers which is like a 4 ohm speaker. This might not damage your amp. But if amp is loaded am quite certain it will start clipping, hence increasing the probability of blowing the speakers. This is all theoretical, practically it can work out, but always better to be on safer side. If you had an amp with better head room, then...
I had a quick look but could not get hold of the frequency & phase response to see if the front speakers require more current which is especially inherent at low bass regions and low priced speakers.
If yes, don't!!
If you are not happy with your sounds its probably bcos your instinct is telling you something is kinda lacking, but you have spent money so you fear of that and dont want to think that is true. I had written replied to a post earlier here, many times when speakers are bought especially floorstanders, a less than 60K ish priced FS can only make you happy so much as compared to the 60K one...so bookshelves at the same price usually fetch u better value.
