Can your amp be to powerful

M

mcoon

Audiophyte
I have a chance to purchase a sunfire signature amp rated at 400 watts per channel at 8 ohms - or to purchase the cinema grand rated at 200 watts per channel - same price, signature is last years model.

But my speakers (pardigms) are rated at 180 to 250 watts. Will the 400 watts hurt my speakers??
 
jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
The short answer to you question is no, so long as you are not trying to drive your pair of speakers beyond their limits. In most cases having not enough power is the cause of speaker failure. What happens is people start trying to get volume levels out of weaker amps and they drive the amp into clipping. Clipping cause the amp to distort and that is when you start blowing tweeters. I have repaired hundreds of speakers and in most every case the person was using a low power/low quality amp. Only once did I have a case of too much power causing a failure. The guy was was using some huge sound reinforcement amps and had about 2500 watts per channel. When you have an amp that is 300, 400, 500 watts just don't drive the speakers beyond their level, when you hear the woofer coil banging you have surpassed it. With a set of paradigm towers you would be at ear bleeding levels by that time. I would not worry about a carver amp though, the ones I have listened to in the past have not had any balls at all. Remember this when you decide on an amp. If you have a good 50 watt amp and you think you need more volume, you would have to increase the amp by a power of 10 to get double the volume level. Meaning you would need a 500 watt amp to double the volume level of a 50. If your 50 watt amp plays at 95db's in order to achieve 105db's which you would percieve as twice as loud, you would need 500 watts for the 10db's more. An increase in 10db's is perceived as 2x as loud by the human ear.
 
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A

av_phile

Senior Audioholic
I wouldn't mind erring on the side of plenty when it comes to power (whether in audio or most everything else :D )

It's nice to have the reserves when you feel like it. You can always tone down the volume. But if you have a weak amp, turning it up can cause problems, as stated in the above post. I have a 250 wpc Acurus driving 150watt Mordaunt Short speakers. So far no problem, I just don't feel the need to drive either to the max.
 
Rob Babcock

Rob Babcock

Moderator
Plus, it never hurts to get more amp for less money. Especially as you never know what you might need down the road. More amp will give you more mileage, as no matter what you might drive with it down the road it should be able to handle it. (Of the top of my head, I'm not aware of any speaker that the 405 x 5 Sunfire can't drive).
 
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