Enough power vs too much power

[spl84]

I know this is an age old discussion but I've always kind of gotten conflicting responses on this. I've almost decided on an amp to power my speakers. I think my speakers have a max power handling of 300 watts. I am wanting to power them with a Hegel H190 which apparently has a peak power of 500 watts per channel. The rms power output rating of the amp is 150w x 2 @ 8ohm. Could this "peak power" rating damage my speakers? I'm all about having enough power but only if the amp will not harm my speakers. Anyone have any real world insight into this? Thanks

 

[jjbomber]

Your ears will be damaged long before your hi-fi. Don't worry about it.

 

[Stuart83]

"A real world insight" and perhaps to put your mind at rest 😜 is It's always better to have more power than too little.
One can always turn it down a little but you can't turn an underpowered amp up over it's limit and it's dangerous when approaching it.

Contrary to belief and underpowered amp is more dangerous than one with too much power when used sensibly of course.
For haste and as it mirrors my understanding and experience only recently when severely damaging a pair of mission floorstanders on all four drivers causing both warping and burning out (see attached pictures) I'm pasting in Google's AI.

"An underpowered amplifier can clip and damage them:
Clipping
When an amplifier is underpowered for the volume setting or speakers, it can clip, which generates square waves.
Damage
These square waves can burn out the speaker's high-frequency driver because of the extra high-frequency harmonic content"

To avoid clipping, make sure the amplifier matches the speakers and desired volume levels. You can check the amplifier's speaker impedance range, which is usually printed near the speaker terminals. For example, an amplifier might be compatible with 4-8Ω speakers.

I only play at loud volumes having the luxury of living in a semi detached bungalow set away from other houses.
I only go for amps north of a genuine 100w to make sure I have plenty of headroom despite knowing with adequate current 60W can get most speakers to open up nicely.

Over the yrs I've managed to damage a few pairs of speakers but find quality gear lasts.
There's obvious and quite dramatic telltale signs when your pushing too far.

Audible Distortion is the biggest give away which is unmistakable when up there in the danger area it comes along side almost lisping treble highs that will make most wince.

The more concerning silent killers are clipping which with certain genres is hard to spot especially if not paying much attention with busy lively music masking things.
The heat build up over time causes warping and blistering to the inner coils and consequently a malformation in the speaker thow.
This causes the scratching to the inner coil in the pictures when rubbing up against the core until they completely seize up.

This can happen over time silently as I found, cranking up the clash with too much gain from my Bluetooth connection was the speakers last few death throws pardon the pun.

The other failures I've had where more common in djay gear which was a regular occurrence but at home over the yrs another 2 pairs of missions bit the dust, one with a torn spider but at 33yrs old of playing loud music it's testament to how well made they were and it wasn't because of anything but age with them.
The others were my first ever bought speakers with the rubber surrounds wearing out again at 20 plus yrs of loud music.
Even a pair of old tannoy M15's took abuse for 20 plus yrs before an accidental knock to the tweeter caused them to disintegrate after time.

I mention this off point as with the correct pairing even small speakers can take a battering but none are indestructible.
If the specs in ohms are matched with quality gear then too much power isn't a problem as the volume dial therefore "power" is at your commands.

 

[nopiano]

Could this "peak power" rating damage my speakers?

No!


Peak power is an instantaneous measure of mere milliseconds duration. It’s a bench test to check the current capability of the amp. It has no meaningful relationship to your speakers ‘power handling’. As @Gray has said, you’ll be turning the volume down long before you blow anything up!

 

[idc]

Based on my experiences with hifi, I would choose a powerful amp driving sensitive speakers. Volume plays a huge part in sound quality, with a sweet spot that creates maximum dynamism and clarity at normal, sensible, practical listening levels. A low volume is flat and misses detail. Too high and it is fatiguing to listen to, again misses detail and can start to distort. I find that sweet spot is easier to achieve and is larger, when the amp has ample power to drive the speakers.

 

[Gray]

"A real world insight" and perhaps to put your mind at rest 😜 is It's always better to have more power than too little.
One can always turn it down a little but you can't turn an underpowered amp up over it's limit and it's dangerous when approaching it.

Contrary to belief and underpowered amp is more dangerous than one with too much power when used sensibly of course.
For haste and as it mirrors my understanding and experience only recently when severely damaging a pair of mission floorstanders on all four drivers causing both warping and burning out (see attached pictures) I'm pasting in Google's AI.

"An underpowered amplifier can clip and damage them:
Clipping
When an amplifier is underpowered for the volume setting or speakers, it can clip, which generates square waves.
Damage
These square waves can burn out the speaker's high-frequency driver because of the extra high-frequency harmonic content"

To avoid clipping, make sure the amplifier matches the speakers and desired volume levels. You can check the amplifier's speaker impedance range, which is usually printed near the speaker terminals. For example, an amplifier might be compatible with 4-8Ω speakers.

I only play at loud volumes having the luxury of living in a semi detached bungalow set away from other houses.
I only go for amps north of a genuine 100w to make sure I have plenty of headroom despite knowing with adequate current 60W can get most speakers to open up nicely.

Over the yrs I've managed to damage a few pairs of speakers but find quality gear lasts.
There's obvious and quite dramatic telltale signs when your pushing too far.

Audible Distortion is the biggest give away which is unmistakable when up there in the danger area it comes along side almost lisping treble highs that will make most wince.

The more concerning silent killers are clipping which with certain genres is hard to spot especially if not paying much attention with busy lively music masking things.
The heat build up over time causes warping and blistering to the inner coils and consequently a malformation in the speaker thow.
This causes the scratching to the inner coil in the pictures when rubbing up against the core until they completely seize up.

This can happen over time silently as I found, cranking up the clash with too much gain from my Bluetooth connection was the speakers last few death throws pardon the pun.

The other failures I've had where more common in djay gear which was a regular occurrence but at home over the yrs another 2 pairs of missions bit the dust, one with a torn spider but at 33yrs old of playing loud music it's testament to how well made they were and it wasn't because of anything but age with them.
The others were my first ever bought speakers with the rubber surrounds wearing out again at 20 plus yrs of loud music.
Even a pair of old tannoy M15's took abuse for 20 plus yrs before an accidental knock to the tweeter caused them to disintegrate after time.

I mention this off point as with the correct pairing even small speakers can take a battering but none are indestructible.
If the specs in ohms are matched with quality gear then too much power isn't a problem as the volume dial therefore "power" is at your commands.

Your coils are more golden than I expected Stuart.
(I've seen some very darkened coils on formers they'd turned into crumbling charcoal.....returned requesting replacement / refund under guarantee ).

 

[spl84]

Thanks fellas. Really helps to make a decision. These are big purchases for me and definitely don't want to make the wrong one.

 

[gasolin]

Why don't you mention what speakers you have ???

 

[spl84]

Why don't you mention what speakers you have ???

Sorry, I thought it was in my sig. Their Focals, Aria936.

 

[gasolin]

100 watt should be enough with rated 92 db sensitivity

The recommended 50-300 watt doesn't mean it can handle 300 watt but that they recommend up to 300 watt when you wanna play loud, have a dynamic, clean sound without distortion

They might only handle 150 watt max

Many floorstand speakers are 87 db sensitive and can handle 150-200 watt, 92 db with the same power should be noticeable louder

 

[Stuart83]

Your coils are more golden than I expected Stuart.
(I've seen some very darkened coils on formers they'd turned into crumbling charcoal.....returned requesting replacement / refund under guarantee ).

I guess they didn't predict on you taking a proper look.

"Coils more golden than expected"

I realise from what I sometimes write and my stated preference in deriving exponentially more joy from the exciting side of the volume dial infact the volume digits correspond to amount of pleasure I take in HIFI the higher up the happier I am 😁 But of course to a point.

I do look after my gear in general having speakers 30 plus yrs but in very few instances just a few months 😬

The little mission mx3 I was happy with being a past favourite but I forgot about the huge difference in room size for the bigger when I saw the bargain price they came up at.
(I never usually consider second hand speakers being perishables they never give much clue to where they are in their lifecycle)

I matched them up with an Yamaha amp on a second hifi coincidentally because the prior mission 763i speakers that sung so nicely with almost any amp wore out after 33yrs via a torn spider (not the ones that make me stand in the toilet)

The little mx3's just weren't suitable and I was always anxious enough to run them with the grills off when listening to anything up loud to watch out for their little tiny drivers readying to jettison themselves out of the window.
I always turned it down out of respect for them when things got lively but it was always around where I like my volume to be 🤬
It seems I'm the type to get attached to inanimate objects especially hifi 😆

But as usual a favourite track this time by The Clash and the high pitched treble lisping came first followed by the immediate seizure of all four drivers which as you probably know is very rare to have all four seize at the same time, it had me thinking along the route of clipping rather than being plainly distorted into mechanical death which would of gotten them eventually by being overplayed

I clambered the route of faultfinding checking DC offsets etc to find after an unhelpful Yamaha wouldn't tell me the specifics that a whopping 48mv is within spec for the amp.
Despite that not usually causing problems Ive always deemed anything over 50mv unacceptable and the budget Yamaha can't be dialed back it's hard set.
Combined with far too much gain playing low quality Spotify via a Bluetooth connection from a phone with the ingredients completed, mixing together they caused the immediate last few death throws of the missions rather than a long span of outright abuse slowly cooking them. 🪦
I won't go further as I mentioned it within it's own thread at the time.

I've since ditched the Yamaha as inline with everybody else on the reviews sections for that model find it underpowered and swapped back to an old favourite pioneer a400 for a sporadically used second hifi (in the living room, out of respect for my one neighbour the main one is in the back bedroom away from the shared deviding wall) the amp rated 40W less has more than double the "genuine power" perhaps more and as you probably know via other posts and pictures I've since swapped the QA 3050i over from my main HIFI and demoed to fyne audio f502 for their replacements.

Since then though I've managed to coax a ebay seller to part out a pair of mission 763i speakers for the 2× 8" drivers and tweeters with crossovers after ages looking.
None of them would consider posting regardless of covering the cost outside of the selling price and it took a little persuading to get a nice woman to simply take apart the speakers via video instruction.

I grew up with my father's tannoy M15 as a small child then he upgraded to the 763i which I loved, so a sentimental attachment value comes into play.
When he brought home a pioneer a400 (which after a quick once over I also have in perfect condition) my love for loud music started.

He'd go to work and as a 12yr old his CDs would come out and I'd thunder them out for hrs.

It will be interesting to hear them again but I've promised myself I will try not to blow them up although I now have spare drivers if I do 😂