Can you ever have too much power?

I do not clearly remember the formula, old age is setting in on the brain cells, but to double your sound level output, in general terms, don't you need 10 times as much power? So...going from a 100 watter to a 250 watter really does not greatly increase your output capabilities. That said, the bigger amp will do some things the smaller one may not and sometimes vice versa.

As alluded to above, I agree with matching amp power to speaker needs. After going to Vandersteen 5 speakers that have built in 400 wpc amps to drive their built in sub-woofers, I went from a huge 300 wpc (McCormack DNA 2 Rev A) to a 100 wpc of equal quality (McCormack DNA-0.5 Rev Gold), and lost nothing in music quality/character.

In fact I now prefer the 100 wpc amp for its user friendliness, and lost nothing in sound quality. The DNA .5 Gold is considerably less expensive too;>) Cheers. Craig

Stne418, here you go!

Basically, it's a geometric progression. For POWER (watts) a 3dB increase requires a doubling of power, a 6 dB increase a quadrupling of power, a 9dB requires 8 times the power, 12 dB requires 16 times the power, etc. Voltage dB is the same doubling, except the measurements are expressed as 6 dB increases when voltage is doubled. Here are the formulae:

dBv (volts) = 20 x log E2/E1 (where E is voltage)

dBw (watts) = 30 x log P2/P1 (where P is watts)
by Fatparrot

Rogo - within reason you cannot have too much power. Amplifier-control of the speakers is one issue, headroom is another equally if not more important issue. My speakers are rated 100w/ch, but they consistently sound better with a 200w/ch amp, or more. Small amps, when overdriven, are what generally causes blown speakers. It is harder to damage a speaker by overdriving it with a big amp than with a small amp which is into clipping. If you occasionally like to crank it up then a larger amp is called for. If not then some of the issues raised above are indeed to be considered. I generally listen at only around 2w/ch, sometimes 20w/ch, sometimes more. At said 2w/ch level I have 100x that power level for an ideal 20dB of transient headroom.
Doubling or halving of power is a 3dB change, which seems like a lot but it isn't actually that much. Going from 1 to 2 watts = +3dB. 2 to 4 watts is +3dB. In the other direction, 100 to 50 watts is -3dB. 50 to 25 watts is -3dB.
for POWER:
1dB = 1.25x
3dB = 2x
6dB = 4x
10 dB = 10x
20dB = 100x

voltage (dBv) is measured differently however.

Bob bundus
Nicely articulated response.