Matching b&w 602 s3's to a NAD t752?


I'm new to the hi-fi thing and I've bought meself a NAD T752 receiver, a t572 dvd/cd player and for now, a pair of 602 s3's.

The T752 is rated at 80 wpc.

The b&w 602's can handle 120 wpc...

My question is, how can I tell if I'm driving the speakers to the point of blowing them?

Once I get the receiver to around +3 or 4, the high end gets too bright (which I'm hopefully attributing to the fact that the speakers haven't been broken in yet) and the drivers look like they're flexing pretty hard. The problem is that it's not quite loud enough for my likes. Just a wee bit more volume and I'd be happy, I swear :).

So, yeah, is there some mathematical equation I'm missing?

If it turns out that I'm nearing the speakers max capacity in this set-up, should I buy more sensitive speakers or a more powerful amp?
dubzilla
The 602's are good speakers for the price, but sometimes can be a bit bright. Probably what is happening right now is that the top end on the speakers are not broken in yet. I had a pair of nautilus 805s and they took about 500 hours to break in. Also, you will probably not blow the speakers with the power coming from the NAD, but no guarantees, if you turn even the best stuff up too high, it might blow. The stuff you have is nice, and good values among the ranks in mid-fi components. If you want to spend more, then of course there is something to buy, but in that price range, you have some great values, good luck .
Thanks for your reply, Jason.

For me, as a noob, I figure this is good gear to learn on, and since it's primarily gonna be a HT system, I'm pretty happy with it. But I've gotta say, now that I'm using it for stereo, it sounds sweet. I just don't wanna see my new toys explode..yet.
In my experience, speakers blow up from too little power, not too much: when your 80wpc solid-state amp is turned up louder than it can handle, it delivers a clipped waveform with more than its rated power and it is that distorted signal which blows out the tweeters. I had the 603S2's in my house for awhile, driven with a 75wpc amp, and I was impressed by how smooth they sounded, how clean they were at high volumes, but I also wanted to turn them up louder--my amp had clip indicator lights so I knew exactly how high I could turn them up. I ended up with B&W CDM7NT speakers and after about half a year their initial brightness had tamed. I also gave them a B&K 200wpc power amp and that helped everything, top to bottom. The B&K is noted for its "dark" sound which I think helped tame the brightness. Toeing them out a little, so you aren't listening right on the tweeter axis, might also help reduce the brightness. Suggest you consider a more powerful amplifier--200w would not be too much--don't worry about the "power rating" of the speaker--and get an amp with some kind of clip indicator so you won't be wondering. Regardless of the speaker, I think you will appreciate that feature given your listening preference which sounds like mine. That's what I had to do to stop blowing out tweeters (years before the B&W's entered the picture) and that amp lasted a long time. Wish my B&K had the same feature--now I'm back to wondering but so far haven't blown anything up. Good luck