AR 3 Speakers

The AR3a is only rated for 100 watts.

I have owned two pairs of 3a's,I ran them with a AR amplifier that I still have,it is rated at 60w per channel at 4 ohms.I can say from experience they will NOT handle that kind of power with 500w,they were never designed to handle that much.The problem was they sounded decent in the day and I always wanted to hear them louder,excellent bass but the tweeters are fragile.The AR amp was a perfect match for them,I found that with larger amps they were only slightly louder but were easily damaged.

How silly the above two posts are. Of course, you don't slam speakers with the maximum power available. The speakers these amps are used with now are much more efficient than ARs.

db

What's the relationship between speaker efficiency (sensitivity?) and power handling? Wait, there isn't one. How silly!

The relationship is power needed to achieve a given SPL, and it isn't usually very much for practical listening levels. What gives AR speakers their LF capability is the large excursion the diaphragm can make. I recall a debate between Paul Klipsch and Edgar Villchur at an Acoustical Society meeting in which Klipsch said something to the effect he didn't care if you push it (the diaphragm) with a broom handle you still have to move the air. IME, well designed powerful amps do a superior job of controlling diaphragm excursions.