Need help with amp. Starting first system.

[Roughers]

I’ve recently purchased JBL 130 bookshelf speakers and 120 centre speaker and have a few questions regarding an amp for them. As I’m new to the home theatre scene I’m not sure about some things and I’m worried I’m going to damage my speakers.

My friend has offered me a pioneer VSX-S300 amp for cheap as he is upgrading. But as I’ve been looking at the specification of the speaker I see they have a power handling of 60W and the amp has a 100W output. Does this mean that the amp is too powerful for those speakers and they will be damaged? Or is power handling a minimum power requirement?

Also as I only have 3 speakers I will not be able to fill up all the channels on the amp. Is it ok to leave channels disconnected?

Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[agarwalro]

Welcome to the forum.

But as I’ve been looking at the specification of the speaker I see they have a power handling of 60W and the amp has a 100W output. Does this mean that the amp is too powerful for those speakers and they will be damaged? Or is power handling a minimum power requirement?

The Pioneer will not damage the speakers. Just be cautious when turning up the volume. If it seems like the speaker is distorting, turn it down. (It could be the speaker or the amp that is the cause of the distortion, but that is a whole other discussion.)

Also as I only have 3 speakers I will not be able to fill up all the channels on the amp. Is it ok to leave channels disconnected?

It is perfectly ok to use only 3 speakers. While we are on the subject of speakers, for your next purchase, go for a Subwoofer rather than the surround speakers. The JBLs will not do justice to the bass and low frequency effects. And, while we are on the subject of adding a subwoofer, use the Sub pre-out instead of the Subwoofer connection in the speaker terminals area.

 

[Roughers]

Thank you for the help and quick response.