speaker wattage and amp wattage question

[The Doc]

is it better for the speaker that the amp can handle more wattage then the speaker needs or for the amp to have less wattage then the specs state. Any pros and cons for over and under powering a loudspeaker?

 

[jaxvon]

It's better to have more amp than you need. While you can blow a speaker with too much power, many people blow their speakers because they push their underpowered amps too hard and send a high-amplitude clipped waveform to their speakers.

 

[highfihoney]

is it better for the speaker that the amp can handle more wattage then the speaker needs or for the amp to have less wattage then the specs state. Any pros and cons for over and under powering a loudspeaker?

selecting a quality made amp is very important,what i mean by that is an amp that can "truly" hold it's spec when being driven hard,going from that standpoint i prefer to use amp's that are much higher powered than the speaker rating for several reasons.

speaker's are blown easier with under powered amp's being pushed beyond or to their limit's trying to get acceptable spl's than with an over powered amp,stronger amp's are able to achieve acceptable spl's without pushing the amp hard allowing the amp to be loafing while still giving the desired listening level.

the problem with this is that most speaker rating's are highly unaccurate & cant be trusted as a hard nailed power limit & the use of higher powered amp's require sensible useage.