Can you ever have too powerful amp for speakers?

300 watts on 100W speakers is ideal; plenty of clean headroom. I've sometimes gone as much as 5 to 1. Only throwing all common sense out the window (regarding drive levels) would cause any problems. Go for it!

It's obviously more "dangerous" than having the recommended power amp rating. While common sense user practices can prevent most mishaps, there are circumstances beyond the user's control. Here's two:

- A short term power outage can turn your system off and then on. If that happens your preamp could send out a transient pulse that could easily fry your speaker's voice coils.

- Your neighbor has a heart attack and your street is quickly crowded with emergency responders. Suddenly bursts of radio chatter come through your system...and then silence.

The above people saying there won't be any problems are not being completely accurate.

Well,i had Odyssey(150w/ch) Stratos Extreme monos(which i soon sold)on a pair of paradigm Studio 60 and was going to upgrade at some point and got a good deal on a Bryston 14bsst(600w/ch).I was using a Anthem D1 pre/pro at the time and when i turned up the volume to the Odyssey levels,the Bryston was so much cleaner and clearer that the woofer in the studio 60's farted and at that point i new i had to sell them or i would have destryed them.I purchased a pair of PMC IB1's soon after.Toooo much CLEAN power is addictive and may push you on the upgrade path.

Diminishing returns perhaps in terms of value for some (that never stopped a true audiophile with deep pockets before however), but recent more cost effective Class D amps which are also highly efficient and deliver top notch sound kind of changes the parameters here as well.

The only downside IMO is some very high powered tube amps may be noisy with ultra efficient speakers.

YMMV