Am I going to blow my Apogees with all this power?

When I first purchased a pair of Apogee Stage speakers I had an NAD 2200PE. It could NOT handle the low impedance and made the midrange/tweeter ribbons dance and twist like crazy.

With every other amplifier I used on the Stages the MRTs were rock steady until I tried to play too loud. At that point I could get small excursions and vibration---but not the spastic gyrations caused by clipping. I would notch the volume back a little and enjoy.

Too much power is not the worst enemy. Lack of control at low impedance is. Try your amps and keep your eyes on the MRTs. Good luck.

First; VU meters do not show peaks; they come and go before the meters can respond. Old time recording engineers were adept at estimating what was really going on from their use but for most of us they are useless. Second; too much power is seldom a problem; too little often is. A 100 watt rated speaker is safer with a 400 watt amp than with a 50 watt amp; clipping is the source of most speaker damage; not overdriving. Who told you that a 102db sensitivity speaker likes a lot of power? Such a speaker would require a fraction of a watt to produce 90db at one meter and would fill the room with a few watts. As Don pointed out watts are not all the same; the ability to drive low impedance loads is not indicated by the power rating at 8 ohms.

What Stanwal said. Manufacturer's recommended power ratings are nominal, and you run more risk of damaging your speakers with a small amp than a large one, because of the high frequency content of clipped signals. 380 watts is a good size for 83 dB efficient speakers, assumign the amps can deliver enough current for a 4 ohm load. Most good amps can, and they'll usually put out more power into 4 ohms than they will at 8 -- not quite a doubling, but close. Again, we're talking peaks here, not steady-state, acoustical music typically has a 10-20 dB peak-average ratio, which means that they're playing 10-100 times as loudly on the peaks as they are on average.

I have the Centaur Majors too. I'm a tube and vinyl listener first and foremost. I've had several amps on my Apogees since I got them in June 11. Right now I'm using an Anthem Amp 2 hybrid 200 watts per channel 8 ohms and 300 in 4 ohms. I had originally wanted a Moscode 300. But I changed the tubes last night and I was blown away. I finally had wall to wall sound with depth, width and height. I finally put on this cd Art of the Ballad from Mapleshade and I backed up on a couple of cuts because the Sax sounded like it was in the room with me. I finally found an amp that sounds promising. My preamp is a VanAlstine Super Pas 3si modified by Tom Tutay. My interconnects are Straightwire Maestro between the power amp and preamp. My Preamp only has about 9 db of gain and the amp only has about 24 db of gain so I'm listening to mostly CD's around 3 o clock. When I bought this the ad said it had 31 db of gain but it doesn't. I can easily approach 90 db in my 14 x 13 foot room with a 14.5 foot ceiling and my speakers on the long wall.

I have also used a Dynaco ST 70 with my Majors and they sounded very good but the bottom end was not as controlled as the Anthem Amp 2 or any amp I have tried. I've used an Adcom original 535 for a few months while shopping for a suitable amp. Sound wise they sounded good but the Anthem so far does what I expected. Sounds Good! I hope it continues to impress me. Made some tweaks today will listen tonight. Can't wait. A little Pro Gold here a little there helps with getting that silent background and it has been Music to my ears!!

Ponnie, Did you say the long wall?

Yes....you will blow the SHIT out of them!.....just kidding.....think I had a few too many drinks on this beautiful New Years Eve!hahahaha! You will be prfectly fine..you can never over power, under powering is the issue! Happy Holidays to all of you!!!

My apogee stages were driven just fine by a 200 wpc aragon 2008 amp (back in 1995). If the Centaur is anything like the stages, you will have speakers that can do the you-are-there thing like no other.

Oh my goodness, thanks everyone for your responses! The carver's supposed to be stable all the way down to 1 ohm, which leads me to believe its got current to spare.

As far as the high power with sensitive speakers bit, That's a Klipsch forum thing. I know logically it makes no sense, but there's guys over there running 500 watt crown amps that swear makes them sing like no other.

Have the Carver back in the system, sound is definitely different, less gritty somehow, but t feels like the Venetian blind effect is a little worse. I'm having a hell of a time finding a spot for the centaur majors that doesn't make certain bass notes boom and others disappear. They're 4-5 feet from the back and sides of the room, so they have room to breathe. Maybe all the reflective surfaces? Lots of space, but also lots of wood and brick.

Anyway, thanks again everyone, hell of a community here, glad to be a part of it :)

I run a McCormack DNA500 into my Apogee Calipers. That's 500W into 8 ohms and 900W into 4 ohms, and my Calipers are basically 3 ohm speakers. No problems with the extra power - Apogees need that low impedance stability.

More importantly, are you bi-wiring them? Apogees "require" bi-wiring to sound their best. No logical explanation why, but it is very noticeable when you try this.