I don't think you are "overdriving" anything. I think you mean pushing the speakers or amp to where they start distorting. It would get really, really loud before that happened. some songs are recorded with too much treble/upper midrange and come across harsh on an accurate system so make sure you aren't testing with the same song every time. Some amps are harsh. I have a friend with the same amp hooked up to some Raidhos and he plays it very loud with no harshness. His system sounds better than mine. I suspect the speakers are a bit harsh. I have a tube amp and had to swap out a few tubes to eliminate harshness but you can't do that. --Jerry
How can I tell if I am overdriving the amp or the speakers?
I have a Hegel H390 driving KEF Reference 5 speakers and when I play something loud, the upper midrange ( saxophone, electric guitar, piano ) start sounding sharp and annoying. The amp is 250 x 2 into 8 ohms, stable down to 2 ohms and the speakers are 90 dbs, 8 ohm, ( min 3.2 ) 50-400 watts. I’m pretty sure it’s not room acoustics, but.
Thanks.
JD