# Speaker/Receiver matching !!!



## Rajesh (Jan 2, 2007)

Hi all,

Happy new year :jump: to all out there . just joined the Hometheatre shack. I have a question If the speakers are 125w RMS ,Then should i drive it with 150w rms receiver ??? Or same wattage??Please Advice.

Regards
Rajesh


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## Otto (May 18, 2006)

Hi Rajesh,

Welcome to the Shack! You should be able to find lots of friendly advice here...

As to power requirements on speakers and amplifiers, you should be OK with the configuration that you mentioned. 

In general, it's worse for your speakers to be driven by an amplifier that has too little power. This is because the amplifier will run out of gas and start clipping, and it's the clipping that's a major contributor to damage on loudspeakers. 

If you have more power than you need, you will likely never really get above the power rating of the speaker. If you do, the speaker may start to distort, and that will be the cause of the damage.

Either way most damage is going to be preceded by some type of distortion of the sound. Also, these will generally occur at high volumes. If it's loud and you think it sounds kinda ******, then you probably ought to turn it down. 

Over the years, I've driven all kinds of speakers with all kinds of amps. I easily blew a home speaker hooked up to a head unit of a car stereo (I was 16, duh!). I was probably pushing 10 or 20 watts to that big speaker, so there's a good example of being underpower on the amp and damaging a speaker. Aside from that, I don't think I've blown a speaker at home. I've used 35 to 100 W receivers to drive B&W 602s and Maggie MMGs (a hard load). I've used 100 W and 200 W dedicated amps to drive other speakers. Never had a problem, but I think I have a pretty good ear for distortion. Just keep it at a reasonable volume (it can still be LOUD, don't worry), and if it sounds bad, turn down a bit.

Happy new year to you too, and have a great day!


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

Hello Rajesh and welcome to the Shack!

I'll move this to the General Home Theater forum.


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## Rajesh (Jan 2, 2007)

Hi Everyone,

I have got good replies to work on this.....Thanks to :surrender: otto and :surrender: soonie . You guys are of great help..have a nice day.

:T


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