Is it OK to drive speakers with a larger wattage than rated? (1 Viewer)

[Arnie_A]

I will be getting an amp soon, maybe a Rotel 1075 or Marantz MM9000 to drive B&W dm603 fronts. The Rotel is rated at 120W and the Marantz is rated at 150W, but the speakers are only rated at 110W, I think. Will this be OK??

Thanks.

 

[PaulT]

Yes it will be fine, watch the Max volumes levels, however.

It is actually easier to damage speakers with lower powered amplifiers than higher due to the amp 'clipping' when you try and get more power out of it than it has.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

I'd say yeah as long as you control the volume on the pre/pro and not crank it to the max and leave them running.

What happens is the pre/pro adjusts the power that goes into the speakers, so like a standard listening volumes, you may be just giving your speakers 1 to 16 watts.

At "wide open throttle" you could give your speakers more power than they can handle and thus fry a voice coil or blow a cone.

 

[Arnie_A]

Makes sense... So stay away from a full-blast movie-going experience watching pearl harbor. ;-)

Thanks to you both.