Speaker choice

[mudcat12]

I've been looking a few sets of Polks for a while now. The research I've done has left me a bit confused.

I'm deciding between the Monitor 50's, the R50's or the RTi8's.

My receiver is a Sony STR-DG920 which is rated at 110x7

I'm leaning towards the RTi8's but some things I've read say that I'll need to push much more than the 110w through each of them since they are rated at 250w.

Which leaves me at my question of whether I'd get better sound pushing this through the M50's or R50's that are rated around 100 - 150w, or pushing this through the higher quality RTI8 and not utilizing all it's power capability.

 

[rnatalli]

Welcome to the forums.

It's unlikely the Sony will actually push 110 watts into 7 channels. Sony is known to inflate their specs dramatically. That said, it should do fine driving driving the Rti8's. The difference between 100 watts and 200 watts in terms of listening is little as you need twice the power to gain 3db. Those speakers are 8 Ohm and 90db efficient so:

90db = 1 watt
93db = 2 watts
96db = 4 watts
99db = 8 watts
102db = 16 watts
105db = 32 watts
108db = 64 watts
111db = 128 watts
114db = 256 watts

 

[mudcat12]

Ok. So my thinking that pushing 200w into the RTi8 will sound better than pushing 100w is pretty far off then?

If I just stick with the higher quality RTi8, I'll get better sound than with the M50's or R50's. The power going into it won't affect the sound quality?

Do I understand you correctly?

 

[DD66000]

Ok. So my thinking that pushing 200w into the RTi8 will sound better than pushing 100w is pretty far off then?

If I just stick with the higher quality RTi8, I'll get better sound than with the M50's or R50's. The power going into it won't affect the sound quality?

Do I understand you correctly?

No, its always better to use more power. Its true that to gain 3db requires twice the watts, but its having the extra power reserves that count.
Its like putting 85 octane into an engine that needs at least 75 octane, the engine will run, but not as well.