russ69,
The reason for the twice as powerful requirement is for clipping.
Do you know what that is ?
If you overdrive an amp, it will clip and may actually DESTROY your speakers, typically starting with the tweeters first.
With and amp twice as powerful as your speakers however, you cannot quite do that even if you accidentally want to because you will notice your speakers getting strained (but not destroyed) sounding really bad and you will turn the volume down. With clipping, you will not have enough time to react to turn down the volume. Clipping happens almost instantaneously.
However, if you do have an amp which can soft clip (again, as I indicated above), then this danger is no longer there and any combination of speaker & amplifier can be used safely.
The reason for the twice as powerful requirement is for clipping.
Do you know what that is ?
If you overdrive an amp, it will clip and may actually DESTROY your speakers, typically starting with the tweeters first.
With and amp twice as powerful as your speakers however, you cannot quite do that even if you accidentally want to because you will notice your speakers getting strained (but not destroyed) sounding really bad and you will turn the volume down. With clipping, you will not have enough time to react to turn down the volume. Clipping happens almost instantaneously.
However, if you do have an amp which can soft clip (again, as I indicated above), then this danger is no longer there and any combination of speaker & amplifier can be used safely.