Underpowered speakers

[davidscott]

Most speaker companies state a minimum and maximum amount of watts their speakers are designed to handle. If your receiver/amplifier falls into their suggested power, you should be just fine. A good rule of thumb is: If it sounds distorted, TURN IT DOWN!

Agreed 130 watts of clean power is almost triple the suggested minimum. And yes if it sounds distorted turn it down. Its easy to blow tweeters with either too little or too much power. Been there done that.
Dave

 

[WineOfTheVeins]

Underpowering is more dangerous than overpowering.

 

[PENG]

Underpowering is more dangerous than overpowering.

That claim is overrated, it depends. I guarantee a CD player with a 10 WPC amp will not damage you 1038 Be at maximum volume, but a 500 WPC amp certainly can, just to make a point.

 

[WineOfTheVeins]

That claim is overrated, it depends. I guarantee a CD player with a 10 WPC amp will not damage you 1038 Be at maximum volume, but a 500 WPC amp certainly can, just to make a point.

Agreed, on extreme spectrums of course. But for typical applications, underpowering is more dangerous.
Would I ever hookup a little Onkyo or Yamaha AVR to my $11,000 Focals and turn it up really loud like I do a fair bit? Not a chance.
Do I feed said Focals with an amp with a conservatively rated 200w continuous at 8 ohms, 550w into 2 ohms (some would say an overpoweredamp) and crank it really loud? Every day, and I know everything is hunky dory.

 

[PENG]

Agreed, on extreme spectrums of course. But for typical applications, underpowering is more dangerous.
Would I ever hookup a little Onkyo or Yamaha AVR to my $11,000 Focals and turn it up really loud like I do a fair bit? Not a chance.
Do I feed said Focals with an amp with a conservatively rated 200w continuous at 8 ohms, 550w into 2 ohms (some would say an overpoweredamp) and crank it really loud? Every day, and I know everything is hunky dory.

I know you won't, but if somehow the volume got cranked to maximum (+18 for D&M)or even at say +10, or 3:00pm position for most analog preamp, leave it there for say 30 minutes playing a typical CD, your 1038 will likely be damaged. Anyway, "more" is a relative term that's why I am not disagreeing, just making the point that it is an averrated claim spread by internet hearsay.

Many speakers can take a lot of power for short duration for sure, it's the long term average power resulted from a severly clipped signal or excessively high unclipped signal that are "dangerous" to them. I am sure you know that already. Both can be considered dangerous, as to "more", who knows, it depends..

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Probably not a good idea to make a wide open blanket statement like "More power is safer or less is safer".

If a speaker is rated for 40-400W, is a 40W amp safer or is a 400W amp safer if someone cranked the volume to max all day long?

What if the amp was a 20W amp or 800W amp?

Even if the 20W amp clipped and the amp didn't go into protection mode and shut off, would this very low power be enough to cause thermal and/or mechanical damage to a speaker rated for 400W?

Would the clipped power from a 40W amp be enough to cause damage?

I think we can agree that if someone used a 800W amp and cranked the volume to max all day long, they can say goodbye to those 400W-speakers because it would cause both thermal and mechanical damages.

I think if they cranked the volume to max using a 400W amp into 8 ohms all day, those speakers would be damaged also.

So if someone asks, "Is it safer to use more power or less power?", I think the answer should be "none of the above" because you should use the amount of power that is somewhere in between the max and min rated power.

If the speaker has a rated power of 40-400W, I think it's probably a good idea to use a high quality amp that is 100-200W into 8 ohms, not 40W or 400W or more into 8 ohms.

 

[Andrein]

As long as 10-20w amp is not clipping at 10-20w, it is safer for speakers than 200+w amp. If it is enough to run these speakers to desired spl levels is another question. I guess the statement that more powerful amp is safer than less powerful implies that the less powerful already hit its limits and started clipping.

 

[Darenwh]

Most speaker companies state a minimum and maximum amount of watts their speakers are designed to handle. If your receiver/amplifier falls into their suggested power, you should be just fine. A good rule of thumb is: If it sounds distorted, TURN IT DOWN!

That's what I tell millennials but they still insist on having Justin Beiber loud enough to hear even though it is obviously very badly distorting...