Another wattage question.

Bombaywalla, thanks, your reply above is one of the rare and priceless explanations that help people to get smarter in their audio quest... If there were Audiogon FAQ, this reply definitelly should be there.

Thanks professor Bombaywalla !!!

Bombaywalla,

Thanks very much for your informative posts!! I second Dmitrydr, this should be in a FAQ. Are you an engineer by any chance?

The simple truth is that more speakers are damaged from too little available power than too much power. While your speaker is rated for 120 continuous watts, it's peak power handling is going to be much higher. That peak will even change with regard to the frequency of the signal. Your speakers will tolerate more power at 1khz than say 30hz. While the amp may be rated for 250 watts continuous, you would be hard pressed to find a musical signal that would require 250 watts continuous. Power pulled from an amp pretty much follows the beat of the music and those small periods of time when you hit 250 watts or more shouldn't be a problem to anything other than the smallest mini monitor. I fried more tweeters with my old Realistic 25watt receiver than I've ever fried with my Hafler XL600 or Pass X250. Amplifier clipping is far more hazardous than having too much available power.

Thanks guys!
Glad to be of some help.