old 40W speakers w/ new 100w x 7 receiver

[bryantm3]

Hi, I have a Yamaha RX-v757 receiver and a couple of polk rti8s hooked up already. i have recently found myself in possesion of two old speakers that i'm thinking of using for SL and SR speakers, leaving me only one speaker away from a 5.1 setup. Unfortunately, the speakers are rated at 40 watts and 8 ohms, and my receiver claims it will power 100W x 7. Is this too powerful for these speakers? I don't want to blow them, but I have heard that receivers often do not power as much as they should. i was going to go to fry's tomorrow and pick up some speaker wire, but i don't want to make a terrible mistake.
Thanks,
Dan

 

[Adam]

Hi, Dan. I don't believe that you'll have any trouble with that combination. Power ratings aside, surround speakers generally receive far less audio signal than the front and center speakers - so your receiver will typically not be sending a lot of power to the rear speakers. Also, unless you like to listen really loud, you probably won't be sending much power to any of your speakers.

 

[bryantm3]

Thanks for your reply, Adam. Although surround sound is typically used for movies, i'm probably going to use it for music more than surround. I know there's no 100% assurance that the setup won't kill the speakers, but I'd like to make sure i won't blow the speakers when listening to loud music much more than i would with the RTi8s.

 

[bandphan]

Thanks for your reply, Adam. Although surround sound is typically used for movies, i'm probably going to use it for music more than surround. I know there's no 100% assurance that the setup won't kill the speakers, but I'd like to make sure i won't blow the speakers when listening to loud music much more than i would with the RTi8s.

25 watts is loud As adam stated even if you are driven all channels listening to music, say in 7ch stereo(well its mono)your amp is going to be somewhere around 60w per not 100w. 60w continuous is extremely loud.
Example using a speakers that is rated at an efficiency of 89bds 1w/1m

Watt(s)..SPL(dB)
1w............89
2w............92
4w............95
8w............98
16w..........101
32w.........104
64w.........107
128w.......110
256w.......113