Receiver Vs Speakers

[Blades]

Speakers

[Joe Redifer]

You'll be fine. It is very, very rare that any speaker or receiver actually produces its peak RMS output, and usually it is for very low frequency sounds. You new speakers might sound a little quieter at the same volume level as before, but just turn the knob up. Your receiver wasn't dishing out a constant 80 watts to your old speakers. Anyway, no worries.

[capi1010]

You'll be fine, the speakers should always have a higher wattage rating than what the receiver can dish out.

On the question of the "source is very, very loud,"...it will not change the output, it can never be greater than 80 watts, and as the previous post stated, it probably will not reach 80 watts. This assumes the input (source) is within standard specs otherwise it would damage the receiver. That would only be from you doing something nonstandard, so don't worry about that.

[evildragon]

no, if i remember, RMS means for "overall", instead of "each"..

[evildragon]

each? you mean peak?
peak means "the most it can do, in extreme cases----but not all the time"... not even related to each or RMS...

[evildragon]

But then why did Joe say Peak RMS Power?
Peak + RMS = Best Possible Power Across Both Speakers

As opposed to Peak = Best Possible Power on Each Spekaer

[evildragon]

Root Means Square

Median means Average...

[evildragon]

how is it not helpful?

Root Means Square: "Means" is the "average" of the watt power between channels. A channel is each speaker.

[evildragon]

No, I mean that its not self-explanatory. And one more thing, would my amp be able to drive 500 watt peak speakers? just a thought.
im not good at the math...

generally, if the speakers have a higher wattage rating than the amp, your safe...

even if it was the opposite, it's usually whatever the weakest link is...

[evildragon]

wait Im confused, As far as I understand it, more peak watts = more power-hungry = required more powerful receiver.

Would my 80-watt receiver be able to power these speakers? I know for a fact (I think) That if I hook up a 10 million watt peak speaker, my receiver would only be able to give out a faint faint sound out of those speakers.

Am I wrong?
your thinking IMPEDANCE.

think of it this way.. wattage is how "well" the speaker and amp work.. impedance is how much the amp has to work to get the speaker to move (it's an AC current)..

the higher the speaker impedance, over the amp rating, the lower the volume.. now, the lower the speaker impedance from the amp, you will damage the speakers and possibly the amp too..

wattage is just how well it will perform at loud volumes.. they never have to match, but which ever has the lower number is the weaker link..

(impedance is the ohms.. for example, most cars have 4 ohms, and most home systems are 6, or 8 ohms).

[Joe Redifer]

Dude, we have already said you'll be fine. Knowing what RMS stands for won't help you in this matter. Search the internet for RMS and the like if you want to understand the terms. Don't worry yourself over WHY I said it.

[evildragon]

Wattage: Mix as your heart desires. You'll only get the performance of the lower wattage.

Impedance: Just PM me for when you need to know that... (which you shouldn't have to worry about if your buying store bought speakers)

[KillerBean2]

I just wanna understand it. So the answer is that my 80-watt receiver will handle a 500 watt peak speaker (in the beginning I asked about 150 watts).

I'm just being really careful after frying my secondary speaker system downstairs, so geez relax, it's a forum for discussing tech items, right?

It's useless to talk about wattage when you want to find out how well a specific amp handles a set of speakers. The "watt" label on your speakers just tells you how hard your amp can beat the crap out of them before they die. And the same "watt" label on the amp tells you how hard it can beat the speakers before it runs out of strength and melts down (and probably kills the speakers too), so to speak...

So basically if both the speakers and the amp are of good quality and the "maximum speaker wattage" is higher than or equal to the "maximum amp wattage" and you never push your amp to the limit, you should be safe :)

If you want a more useful pointer as to how easy the speakers will be for your amp to pull, you should find out what the speakers "sound pressure level" (SPL) is measured in decibels. If the speakers SPL is high, it means that they will play very loud even if they are being fed by a low wattage amp.

Forget about RMS and Peak. It doesn't even make sense to talk about those two in relation to HiFi wattage. It makes more sense to say "Music Wattage"(not the same as RMS) and "Sine Wattage"(Peak, if you must). The Sine Wattage tells you, how much wattage the speakers can take if you feed the amp with a pure sine signal, and as Joe Redifer says, this isn't very useful to you ;)