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Okay I am planning to buy a new AV receiver and some speakers for my DVD player only I dont quite understand yet how the reciever's watts and impedence affect my choice of speakers.Lets say I saw a receiver with 100 watts per channel (x5 it think) with 8-16 ohms and I plan to use some old speakers for the mean time before I buy new ones.
What would happen if I plug in a couple of 120 watt speakers at 8 ohms?
Or how about some old speakers at 100 watts each at 4 ohms?
Follow Ups:
The main thing you want to do is make sure the impedance is matching. You're better off driving higher impedance speakers with a lower impedance amp... so the 8ohm amp is fine with the 8-16ohm speakers. I'd skip on the 4ohm speakers if possible just to be safe.As said elsewhere, the wattage is more or less meaningless in regards to apparent volume. Different manufacturers rate it different ways or market different types of wattage (peak vs. RMS), but you also have to check how many watts they kick out at which load... Denon has listings on some of their amps at 6ohm, some at 8ohm, etc. Then you have to worry about speaker type, speaker efficiency, etc...
My general rule is find the amp with the most features you want, then find the one on that line that has the most watts you can afford. It's better to have more than you need for a couple reasons. First, the higher the capability, the less chance there is of having to push your speakers to distortion. Not only will they not sound as good, but you could also damage the speakers. Next, it gives you some room to grow if you move to a larger place... that way you can improve the rest of your components in stages rather than dropping a large dime all at once. Finally, it comes in handy in territorial disputes with the neighbors... but only in severe cases, mind you.
Something a salesman used on me that you might want to know is that you don't have to match the wattage of speakers and amps. I was told years ago that you should match this wattage to make sure it doesn't blow out the amp. He was mistaken: this relates back to the bit about pushing to distortion... The danger comes in pushing a 100 watt speaker with a 50 watt amp: if you jack the amp too high, it can damage the speaker when it craps out on peaks, etc. If you're mindful of this, it won't be a problem... just treat it like a 50 watt speaker (whatever that means...)
One final note: a 100 watt amp is not twice as loud as a 50 watt amp. The general rule is that an amp has to have 10 times as much power to crank out twice as much volume. Therefore, to be twice as loud as a 50 watt amp you would need 500 watts.
Take everything salespeople say with a grain of salt. They say what they have to to make the sale, but they usually have no idea what their talking about. This is probably common knowledge, but just wanted to reiterate it.
Gee thanks guys. =)These info will prove helpful for me. At least now I have some guidelines on selecting my AV receiver and future speakers.
You're fine. Speaker "wattage" ratings are generally meaningless; in most amps, you'll get clipping and other distortion that will blow your drivers before the speakers reach their "magic" wattage level. Just don't crank them up to where you hear obvious distortion!Some speakers, such as KEF's Q series that I like, go down quite low in impedance at certain frequencies and thus are harder to drive than other speakers. But most popular home theater speaker sets on the market today (Paradigm, Definitive Technology, Energy) are a pretty easy load on an amp rated at 100 watts. Also, current can be more important than wattage, which is why Harman Kardon's high-current amps that appear to be lower-rated in wattage can actually produce more SPL than higher-wattage amps.
You didn't provide a budget but if you do I'll give you some models that I like in that price range.
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