Power question

[Drumheller]

My receiver is a Pioneer SC-1222-K. It claims to be able to put out 115W per channel. I bought a pair of Klipsch RS-42 II surrounds. Those speakers are rated a max of 75W. Do I need to return them and get the RS-52 II or RS-62 II to handle more power or will these be fine in a surround position?

Thanks!

 

[jliedeka]

You probably won't end up pushing that much power through your surrounds. Most of us only push a few watts per speaker during normal listening. If you are trying to fill a huge room with reference level movies or music in surround, you may run up against limitations but I really doubt it. Your receiver would run out of gas first. 115 wpc doesn't mean a constant 115 in all channels. Most manufacturers wpc rating is for two channels driven at < 1% THD+N.

Jim

 

[zieglj01]

My receiver is a Pioneer SC-1222-K. It claims to be able to put out 115W per channel. I bought a pair of Klipsch RS-42 II surrounds. Those speakers are rated a max of 75W. Do I need to return them and get the RS-52 II or RS-62 II to handle more power or will these be fine in a surround position?

No, you should be fine.

 

[Irvrobinson]

The power ratings for speakers are some of the dumbest specifications in all of audiodom. You could use a 600W/ch amp with those speakers and as long as you listened at anything like a reasonable volume you'd probably be just fine.

 

[Drumheller]

The power ratings for speakers are some of the dumbest specifications in all of audiodom. You could use a 600W/ch amp with those speakers and as long as you listened at anything like a reasonable volume you'd probably be just fine.

In all seriousness, what is reasonable? I do like loud, but mostly for music and I probably won't be using the surrounds when listening to music. The surrounds will be for movies and I probably won't have the volume at max at those times.

Thanks everyone for your replies!

 

[Irvrobinson]

Reasonable includes quite loud. How big is your room?

 

[monkish54]

Reasonable includes quite loud.

How specific!

 

[zieglj01]

Your Klipsch RS-42 II will not easily fall apart, and have some
headroom for surround dynamics.

NOMINAL IMPEDANCE: 8 Ohms compatible
■POWER HANDLING: 75W RMS / 300W Peak
■SENSITIVITY: 93dB @ 2.83V / 1m

The 93db seems optimistic to me - however, they will play loud.

Also your receiver in surround mode, becomes less efficient.

 

[Drumheller]

Reasonable includes quite loud. How big is your room?

Vaulted ceilings to 13 feet, room is approximately 17 by 18 feet and is not a sealed room.

Thanks!

 

[Adam]

Hi. As others have said - you'll be fine.

The RS-42 II are rated for 75W RMS / 300W Peak. They are also rated at 93 dB @ 2.83V / 1m (which is about equivalent to 1W / 1m for those speakers).

Here's a handy website for you to calculate sound levels (first one that I found using Google - I'm sure that there are more).

Assuming the calculations on that site are right - at 75W, assuming that you are about 6.5 feet away from those speakers, the sound level will be about 109 dB. That's loud. Really loud. You won't be listening to that for hours on end, but that's what the speakers are rated for. 300 W peaks would be about 115 dB.

I think that I got that right, but I know that someone will correct me if I didn't.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Vaulted ceilings to 13 feet, room is approximately 17 by 18 feet and is not a sealed room.

Thanks!

Your room isn't that big. So assuming you're 10 feet from the speakers, and even assuming they're only 93db/w, they'll do 100db+ peaks at your listening seat with less than 10 watts. Your ears will give out before the speakers are threatened.

 

[markw]

If you feed those speakers 75 watts and you're anywhere near the same room, your ears will be bleeding.

 

[Drumheller]

Thanks everyone!

I had used some calculators online but much of this is new to me. This is the first time I've had good speakers and so I've never paid much attention to specs in the past. I didn't want to blow the speakers through a mistake.