Do I want an amp that can put out more power than my speakers can handle?

[BigToque]

Say I've got a set of speakers that can handle 100W RMS, but the amp puts out 200W RMS. Will this damage the speakers?

I know it sounds retarded, but I was under the impression that you always wanted an amp that was more powerful than what your speakers could handle.

 

[Baked]

It'll be fine. My power amp has more juice than the speakers. More juice on your amp just means you don't have to crank the volume all the way up on the preamp. I like it that way 'cause it gives me more control.

Ps. AFAIK.

 

[BigToque]

Originally posted by: Baked
It'll be fine. My power amp has more juice than the speakers. More juice on your amp just means you don't have to crank the volume all the way up on the preamp. I like it that way 'cause it gives me more control.

Ps. AFAIK.

This is exactly what I was thinking, but I didn't remember if it was true.

 

[Kalvin00]

most say keep them as close as possible....but just don't crank it too much. Depending on the brand it might take more than rated consistently....but that's not a given.

 

[OrganizedChaos]

i say to big is better than to small.

with the oversized amp you shouldn't have to worry about maxing it out clipping/cooking your drivers with DC.

 

[yhelothar]

Nope. You'll rarely have it turned up over 5W anyways.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: BigToque
Say I've got a set of speakers that can handle 100W RMS, but the amp puts out 200W RMS. Will this damage the speakers?

I know it sounds retarded, but I was under the impression that you always wanted an amp that was more powerful than what your speakers could handle.

Depends, do you crank the volume to max?

 

[BigToque]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: BigToque
Say I've got a set of speakers that can handle 100W RMS, but the amp puts out 200W RMS. Will this damage the speakers?

I know it sounds retarded, but I was under the impression that you always wanted an amp that was more powerful than what your speakers could handle.

Depends, do you crank the volume to max?

On the headunit you mean? I like my maximum volume that I can tolerate to be about 50% of the headunits max.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Well, a 200W amp driving 4 speakers is delivering 50W roughly to each speaker isn't it?

 

[BigToque]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Well, a 200W amp driving 4 speakers is delivering 50W roughly to each speaker isn't it?

The amp is 200W x 2, and it's powering 2 speakers.

If I put in a component system, I guess it would be 4 speakers.

 

[43st]

Professionally speaking you always want to more amp than speaker, for consumers is probably doesn't matter as much if you're not constantly driving it at or near capacity. The reason for this is an amp will start outputing a square wave at the extent of it's power range, this will damage your speakers.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: BigToque

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Well, a 200W amp driving 4 speakers is delivering 50W roughly to each speaker isn't it?

The amp is 200W x 2, and it's powering 2 speakers.

If I put in a component system, I guess it would be 4 speakers.

Oh, disregard my post then.

 

[Saint Nick]

Does the same go for guitar amps and speakers?

 

[Old Hippie]

The reason for this is an amp will start outputing a square wave at the extent of it's power range, this will damage your speakers.

Bingo! :thumbsup:

 

[Tiamat]

Yes, you do. The last thing you want to do is get an underpowered amp.

An underpowered amp will send a clipped signal to the speakers if you ask for too much SPL. This more than often burns the tweeter's voicecoil.

Overpowered amp will deliver the power you need. You will most likely not overdrive your speakers if they are made to fill the space that you need with the proper volume.

 

[coaster831]

Originally posted by: pOwder
Does the same go for guitar amps and speakers?

There's a lot of different ways to view it, depending on what you want your tone to be like. For most tube guitar amps, you typically want a speaker rated higher than the amp's output because tube amps can output a lot more power than what they are rated at- but if you don't crank your amp that much, you could go to a 1:1 ratio or even lower.

Some people like to push the limits on alnico speakers (less common in amps these days- most are ceramic) because you can achieve some speaker breakup, which tends to be a desireable sounding distortion in conjunction with your amp overdriving (some call speaker breakup the purest form of overdrive, although I think that's taking it a little far).

In most combos and head/cabs, I'd say you have at least a 1:2 amp to speaker power handling ratio. For example, a 100W Marshall head is often seen into a 1960A cabinet loaded w/ V30s, which handles 300W. A Fender twin power amp is rated @ 100W, and the 2 Jensen C12N speakers handle a total of 200W.

 

[thirdeye]

You'll be fine as long as you don't have the gain too high on the amp. I've read several places that generally more speakers are blown from underpowering than over, because of the distortion.

Technically you're still only power 2 speakers. Your x-overs will do the splitting of the frequencies for the components.

 

[BigToque]

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[FlashG]

From Crutchfield

"Clipping
Clipping occurs when an amplifier is asked to deliver more current to a speaker than the amp is capable of doing. When an amplifier clips, it literally cuts off the tops and bottoms of the musical waveforms that it's trying to reproduce, thus the term. This introduces a huge amount of distortion into the output signal. Clipping can be heard as a crunching sound on musical peaks."

and

"Power Handling (RMS)
The maximum continuous sine wave power that can be dissipated by a speaker without failure, measured in watts RMS. Most speakers fail for one of two main reasons:

1. A speaker is driven with too much power, beyond its rating, and it overheats.

2. The amplifier is driven into clipping, producing square wave distortion that destroys the driver. "

 

[torpid]

Some amps can deliver different wattage depending on the impedance too, I think. Or I could be completely wrong and look like an idiot now.

 

[Mucho]

No way, someone will one day crank it up and ruin the speakers

 

[Specop 007]

You know what damages speakers? Too much power. If you overpower them you overpower them, regardless of if its because you clip a smaller amp or just plain drive a bigger amp.

As such, I wouldnt worry too much about making sure my amp is a perfect match for my speakers and I would spend more time making sure I knew the limits of my system and that it was appropriately configured.

I personally like amps rated higher then speakers because I like to get the dynamics without the distortion, but there again if you put a much larger amp on speakers you have to realize you can still cook your speakers.

Essentially, it has everything to do with the chucklehead running the volume and little to do with the amps power rating.

 

[blazerazor]

I thought you put your volume ALL the way UP, and with the (pre-amp, gain, whatever knob) on you amp on ZERO, you slowly turn it up until it just starts to load the speakers too much. Then you leave it there. Drunk idiots cant jump in you car and blow them then.