What kind of speakers do I need to safely and efficiently operate a 300 Watt receiver?

Question

I have a 300 Watt JVC receiver that I bought from a pawn shop. It works great but I don't know much about stereos and wattage. Would the 300 watts be dispersed among how many speakers I am using? Do all 300 Watts come out of one channel at a time? Its questions like these that I am unsure of in looking for appropriate speakers. Basically I want to make sure I'm not going to blow anything out. Would two 150W floor speakers be enough with a few shelf speakers for surround sound? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

This is a tricky question.

Here are some facts:

- On average, the receiver is putting out 5-15 watts per channel

- Speakers are damaged by UNDER POWERING them, not by over-powering them

- Low frequency sounds take a lot more power than high frequency sounds

As the others have said - you should be OK, but dont crank the volume control.

"Would two 150W floor speakers be enough with a few shelf speakers for surround sound?"

No.

A set of 5 identical shelf speakers and a external sub will give you a superior system.

There are lots of reasons behind this advice - too many to go into.  My advice to you is to hit your local CraigsList and find someone selling off their 5.1 speakers. Make sure the 5 speakers are the same brand and you will be fine. The subwoofer should be self powered, but can be a different brand from the other speakers.

Answer 2

Wattage is a very mis used tyerm.  Sometimes manufacturers add the channels together, based on peak power.  TYhat is an artificially inflated number.  When I first got into Stereo equipment i found out that the amp's true power is listed as Root Mean Square or RMS and was listed based on one channel.  That was what one channel could sustain and is the figure to use when comparing speakers to amps.

Another important consideration is impedance, measured in Ohms.  That's that upside down U shaped figure, omega.  If speaker and amp don't match, ugliness will ensue.

Answer 3

Look at the Specs on  your receiver.   Your 300 Watts should be something like 60 x 5 or 150 x 2.  Any speaker (well, almost any speaker) can handle 60 watts without damage BUT some higher end speakers may need more power to perform well.

So, buy speakers that are not too big and fairly efficient (they measure efficiency by how loud the speaker will get with 1 watt of power, so get something 90 db or better).

You will not blow out 2 150w floor speakers with that receiver.  I am running 300w into each of my 7 channels (2100 total watts)

Answer 4

The 300watts is a the total wattage, that amount will not be going into each speaker. It will be about 70watts to any given channel. Speakers wont matter too much, depends what your looking for quality wise.

150watt (8ohm) floor standers will be fine, if you turn it up too much and hear any strain on the speakers just turn the reciever down a touch.

Hope that helps a little.