Can a power amp have too much power, risking damage to a speaker?

      +1s...to all that mentioned more speakers being damaged by underpowered amps, driven into distortion/clipping, taking out tweeters and: then mids.

       When I had my shoppe, in Winter Park, Florida; that's what I saw the most, having four major colleges, so close by.     Especially: the beginning of the week, after their parties.

        I stocked a variety of Zener diodes and heat sinks, that I made limiters with, to protect 'em and they'd still melt the adhesives (used as witness), at which point: bigger amps were provided.

        Typically: the only woofers that came in and needed reconing or replacement, were from the multitude of musicians, live music venues and the Navy base's E-Club disco (4 Cerwin-Vega 15" 3 ways and two Flame Linear 700s), in the Orlando area.

         I was one of Central Florida's  warranty stations, for Cerwin-Vega, Altec-Lansing, Gollehon, EV and JBL's Pro lines and could offer 24 hour service, for most of those. 

                            Pros like that.  Keeps 'em in business, making music.

          I'd still be there, enjoying that aspect of the hobby, but for a stinking sinkhole, opening up twenty feet from my property. 

                                                 Oh well!    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

                                                    Happy listening!

If you crank up the volume beyond the speaker’s capababilities for an extended period, then you’ll likely blow the speaker. However, typically it’s an underpowered amp that goes into clipping that will destroy the speaker. More power is better, but must be used judiciously.

Rb61 agree. +1. My experience with my Tekton speakers and my Tsakadiris 150 w mono? I got involved so much on the music playing. I crank the volume beyond the speakers limit , I blew the tweeter.So be careful.

Don’t you have a preamp?

Just don’t turn it up.

A general rule of thumb we see in service of loudspeakers 

too much power sent to a speaker cooks woofers (from being too loud, beyond the dynamics of the speaker)

underpowered usually cooks tweeters as the amp runs out of power and begins clipping ( clipped output = square waves = impossible for a speaker to follow a square wave precisely so it overheats trying to )

Brad