Video Asylum

Posted by Dalancroft (A) on August 07, 2003 at 08:42:05

In Reply to: Need help with receivers and speakers posted by Newbee on August 06, 2003 at 18:39:27:

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.