Story on my speakers??? Watt power?

Question

My speakers total up to 190 watts (50 watts x2 for front and 40 watts x2 for satellite), my tuner is 105 watts... are my speakers unable to reach their full potential? How does it work?

Answer 1

You'll blow your speakers before you hit 105 watts.....believe it or not it's actually true....

There's this thing call "clipping"....it's when your amplifier gets cranked up so high the audio signal no longer amplifies but starts to switch on and off like a light switch....THAT's CLIPPING !

It sounds a little distorted when it clips....

So, even though your speakers can handle 190 watts, your amplifier can only put out 105 watts of maximum power...THERE's your limiting factor in your equation !

When that amp Clips, that's it....you can't add any more power to it.....

Most of the time you start to hear clipping when the amp is at 2/3 to 3/4 of it's maximum output !

Now why is that? Because of the tone controls, you can easily push the amplifier with BASS or Midrange or Highs to the point where it overdrives the transistors....the signal maxes out to the plus and minus Voltages of the power supply, and it goes directly into Clipping at that point.....

With a scope you can see the clipping....with your EARS you can hear it get distorted....and that's when you back it off by a couple numbers....

Answer 2

Your speakers have a MAX capacity of a specific number of watts. DO NOT run them at max capacity. A max power wattage setting is informing you that those speakers can run at x amount of watts for about ten seconds before the die.

I'm assuming that you have a 5.1 receiver meaning that the 105 would be evenly divided between each channel. That would be 21 watts a channel. You are able to get a bigger receiver if you want but make sure it does not knock too closely to the speakers max.

(As a side note I noticed you did not mention a center channel. If it is a surround sound setup, I would highly advise utilizing the center channel. That is where a huge majority of your main sound should be coming from) :)

Answer 3

Another thing that was not mentioned is that you can NEVER have too much power in an amp, nor too big a sub woofer. If you have a lot of power in an amp you simply won't need to use it. As others have said the key factor in blowing speakers is amp clipping. A large amp won't clip so you can drive your speakers closer to their rated output without damage.

Answer 4

TV tech man is correct.. although he failed to mention you need more power from your power source amp,receiver.. or you will clip and even oscillate at different frequencies! rule of thumb, always have more power than your speakers rating! this prevents distortion,hard clipping, soft clipping,etc... if you want the best sound make sure your power source follows ohms law! look it up for future reference! distortion is heat and that is any systems enemy!