Exceding recommended power rating

ditusa

1,976 posts

04-30-2025 at 09:20am 

@twangy57: See here. 

My question is simple.Is the amplifier going to blow my speakers even if I never play it very loud?

No!

Mike

That's what I thought as I have read quite a few people who own these say they routinely put 600 watts through them.

Thanks

You're good to go!  Hope you love the pairing.

It's worth noting that you likely won't damage speakers by overpowering them but you can damage them by underpowering them.  This seems counterintuitive but it's the reality.  As you raise the output of an amp the distortion increases.  As you get close to maximum output you are also getting maximum distortion.  Distortion will kill speakers. 

There is only few percent of peak amp's power delivered with music, because average loudness (half) delivers 1/10 of peak power, while music has gaps.   It depends on music - heavy orchestral pieces will bring higher average power, while Jazz trio will have almost none.  I wouldn't be concerned about these ratings, unless you listen to sinewaves at full power. 

As rick_n said "Distortion kills speakers".  Flattened squarish sinewaves (overdriven amp) deliver a lot of high frequency energy, that often kills tweeters.  It happened to me, trying to play very loud (New Year party) using 50W amp.
 

We usually use 2-20 watts while listening to actual music.  Even if you pair your speakers with 20,000 Watt amps so long as you keep the volume to adult listening levels you'll be fine.  Pay attention to audible distortion and turn the volume down when you hear it and you'll be fine. 

Overpowering compact speakers means pushing the woofer beyond the limits of its range of motion. That makes a loud popping noise, which is unmistakable. As long as you don’t hear that, you’re good. Most speaker damage comes from ignoring the audible distortion caused by too little power to complete the waveform fully, a phenomenon known as “clipping”.