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Can you ever have too powerful amp for speakers?

Can you ever have "too powerful amp for speakers"?
Suppose you have a 300 watt per channel amp driving speakers that only demand, say 80-100 watts a channel or have high enough sensitivity, or a regular 8 ohm load, will some massive Audio Research or Krell amp, even if it is far in excess of what the speaker needs, it should be fine, right? You just never end up turning your preamp volume pot up very loud...or is it better to have an amp that you can peg the preamp much higher say 12 noon or 2 o clock?
dustbowl

Showing 1 response by onhwy61

onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,300 posts
 
It's obviously more "dangerous" than having the recommended power amp rating. While common sense user practices can prevent most mishaps, there are circumstances beyond the user's control. Here's two:

- A short term power outage can turn your system off and then on. If that happens your preamp could send out a transient pulse that could easily fry your speaker's voice coils.

- Your neighbor has a heart attack and your street is quickly crowded with emergency responders. Suddenly bursts of radio chatter come through your system...and then silence.

The above people saying there won't be any problems are not being completely accurate.
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