Question about Amp Power Rating and Speakers

[rockman85]

Is it true or false that you can have and Amp rated at a much higher power than the speaker can handle as long as you dont turn up the volume too high. Say you have a 150 watt @4ohm rated speaker and you hook up an new XPA Gen 3 which gives like 400 - 500 watts per channel at 4ohms. Will the speaker be ok as long as you dont crank it?

[garbulky]

Yes. It is better to have a more powerful amp than an underpowered amp that clips. Clipping can damage speakers quickly. I have seen bookshelf speakers run off an XPR-2 and a speaker rated at 30 watts run off a UPA-2 (which is rated much higher). My axioms are rated at 400 watts RMS @ 4 ohms. The XPA-1s gen 2 I drive them with do 1000 watts.
You won't hurt your speaker*.
*Unless you are insane and love ridiculous party levels where the speakers are clearly and consistently hitting their limits.

[rockman85]

Excellent, thanks for the reply. Welp, time to buy an XPA Gen 3 then ; )

[brutiarti]

I saw ribbon tweeters getting damaged from clipping by underpowered amps.

[knucklehead]

True.

Putting lots of clean power into your speakers is fine - sort of! How loud do you like to listen to music? How efficient are your speakers?

If you like loud the question becomes: What gives out first? Your hearing or your speakers or your amp/avr/receiver? When you clip (distortion) your amp/avr/receiver for very long you risk blowing a tweeter or a woofer. Create enough heat in the amplifier and it might go into protection mode. At some point the amp and/or the speakers will be weakened if this trend continues. Clipping usually what happens when you use less powerful amps - most often with an AVR or 2 channel stereo receiver/integrated amp and a large listening space. This is often an easy answer to some of the guys around here - get more power than you need. I don't subscribe to that one. The question is: How much power do you need? My answer is: Do you hear clipping with your current setup? If you do then get more power - if not then adding twice the watts as your current amp/avr/receiver isn't likely to give you any audible gains. You cannot hear headroom.

Read this link for more.

I've used everything from Crown pro amps with gobs of power (over 300wpc) to using an Emotiva Fusion Flex (50wpc) amp and a Yamaha AVR (90wpc) to drive my current speakers. I don't listen at high SPL very often but even the Fusion amp did a very credible job of driving the 88db efficient song towers when I crank things up.. I drive them at full range since they don't need a sub. Adding a sub to the mix would decrease the power draw on the amp since low frequencies are shunted off to a sub. So take that into account as well.

For a more detailed answer you might list your audio gear.

[rockman85]

I am actually trying to make a decision on what Amp to get for a purchase of a pair of Tekton Pendragon towers. I want to get the 4ohm version and they are rated at 400 watts (not sure if thats peak or RMS, the website doesnt specify) and I just wanted to make sure I pair them with the right amp, I was thinking the new XPA Gen 3 (2 channel) but the wattage is around 500 watts. I made an assumtion (I could be wrong) that the Pendragon 400 watt rating was peak power, and I dont want to feed them too many watts and damage them, hence my question about volume and safety. 

Thoughts?


www.tektondesign.com/pendragon.html

[KeithL]

In general speakers are talking about peak power... because music has a wide dynamic range, and a relatively low average power level (compared to the peaks).

As long as you don't turn it up insanely loud, well past where it starts distorting, a 500 watt amp is just fine with speakers rated for anything over about 200 watts.

[rockman85]

Jul 26, 2016 13:31:44 GMT -5 KeithL said:

In general speakers are talking about peak power... because music has a wide dynamic range, and a relatively low average power level (compared to the peaks).

As long as you don't turn it up insanely loud, well past where it starts distorting, a 500 watt amp is just fine with speakers rated for anything over about 200 watts.

Thats what I thought, so being that the rating is likely referring to peak power, would I be just as well off with a less expensive amp like the new Bas X?

[brubacca]

The BaseX is made to be the entry level product. It should have plenty of power, but is from a lesser range than the xpa. Take that for what it is worth. The XPA should be a higher quality amp and higher power.

[garbulky]

Jul 26, 2016 13:26:48 GMT -5 rockman85 said:

I am actually trying to make a decision on what Amp to get for a purchase of a pair of Tekton Pendragon towers. I want to get the 4ohm version and they are rated at 400 watts (not sure if thats peak or RMS, the website doesnt specify) and I just wanted to make sure I pair them with the right amp, I was thinking the new XPA Gen 3 (2 channel) but the wattage is around 500 watts. I made an assumtion (I could be wrong) that the Pendragon 400 watt rating was peak power, and I dont want to feed them too many watts and damage them, hence my question about volume and safety. 

Thoughts?


www.tektondesign.com/pendragon.html

I've heard the Tekton Pendragons. They are very efficient. So the cleaner the signal is more important than how much power it has. Now granted more powerful stuff does better. I have heard it with XPA-1 gen 2s and I think the pairing is quite nice. The XPA-1 gen 2 has got a class A mode that I like. Class A mode eliminates a thing called crossover notch distortion which is present in every wave cycle. Also the XPA-1 can be run fully balanced which can also lower distortion to a certain degree. Are these things audible? I believe so from my experience. But I can't attribute it with certainty to what makes it sound better. I can tell you that class A sounds subtly better.

However it's not the only game in town. You can try powerful tube amps - if you like the sound they produce. Bob Latino does some very affordable ones. Etc.