Speaker wattage question

Speaker wattage ratings are generally meaningless.  The two key specs are impedance and sensitivity when matching an amp to a pair of speakers. 

As others have pointed out, you have a quality amp with more than enough power to drive your KEF's without fear of ever clipping.  The sheer volume level alone would cause you to back off on the knob long before you ever start to approach clipping with your Parasound. 

Low powered amps driving difficult loads destroy speakers by clipping.  Not high powered amps like yours.  Don't worry about it and enjoy your system.  I bet it sounds great!

paraneer

Speaker wattage ratings are generally meaningless. The two key specs are impedance and sensitivity when matching an amp to a pair of speakers.  

  Add to that a third, any high negative phase angles at low impedance's as well.

Cheers George

paraneer
639 posts
08-10-2016 5:09pm
Speaker wattage ratings are generally meaningless. The two key specs are impedance and sensitivity when matching an amp to a pair of speakers.

I wouldn't say that speaker wattage rating is generally meaningless - it does have a function. And that function is to generally make the user aware how much wattage the cone drivers can handle before they start distorting. Even tho' one is going to hit those max wattage numbers infrequently, one needs to be aware of the max wattage handling or one is going to break/fry/destroy the driver(s) with too much power. Personal experience confirms this. If the max wattage handling of the speaker was not mentioned one could do a lot more damage more quickly than if this spec was stated - i.e. you know whether you can go all out with your amp or not. For example - my DMT10 speakers can handle 350W & they are connected to a 120W/ch amp. I know that even i crank the volume to max, i will not destroy the drivers. OTOH, my Scintillas can handle 200W max so I cannot crank the volume to max as my amp can output 1100W into 1 Ohm. If I didn't know this I'd have fried the ribbons by now....

I agree with you that speaker wattage handling spec is not what one uses to match amps to speakers.
good additional point by georgelofi.  

Look at this review and you can see that the reviewer used a pair of Anthem Statement M1 monoblocks which are rated at 1000w.

http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/557-kef-ls50-loudspeakers 

" Then, for the heck of it, I tried the LS50s with the Copland CTA 506 ($6000), a tubed stereo amp that puts out 90Wpc into 16, 8, or 4 ohms; as well as a pair of Anthem Statement M1 monos ($3500 apiece), a proprietary class-D design capable of unbelievably high power (1000W into 8 ohms). The sound was slightly different with each amp, but one thing remained the same: the diminutive LS50s sounded much bigger than their size let on. I also learned that, with any of these amps, the LS50s could play loud -- louder than I expected from speakers of their size, and louder than I really needed them to."

Unless you get really crazy stupid loud with your Parasound, I don't think it's 165w/channel will be a problem.

Bill

bombaywall- That's my situation. I had a NAD Viso Five @ 65 WPC, so I knew I never had to worry. Now I possibly do.


So, the general opinion is that if I hear distortion, turn it down. Otherwise I should be fine?

And, willand, they do play loud. The sound is much larger than their size would let on. I'm pretty blown away. That's why I'm asking this question. They sound fine very loud, but I don't want to cause damage.