Amplifier to Speaker Matching Tutorial | UniqueSquared.com

You can drive a 500W speaker with a 10W amp, the sound output just won't be very loud. In a home stereo, it's not crucial to have an overpowered amp for your speakers, depending on your usage. If you listen to music at comfortable and neighbour-friendly levels, a small-ish amp can drive big-ish speakers to a certain degree, lets say a 50W amp driving 100W speakers. But in a professional setup where you are looking at a high power usage scenario over prolonged periods of time, you want a more powerful amp, the manufacturers of speakers often recommend an amp which is equal or upto double the power of the speakers, i.e. 500W to 1000W amp for 500W speakers. The reason for this is that you want to avoid that the amp will start clipping at all costs. An amp that clips will blow up speakers very quickly. Then it is up to you as a sound engineer to handle this power correctly, i.e. not push the speakers too hard by setting the levels correctly on the amp. A 500W RMS speaker can handle more than 500W in short peaks, i.e. a kick drum or similar, as long as you don't push too hard.

Thank you for explaining this. You saved me from making a colossal mistake in purchasing an integrated amp on eBay that looked good, but from your excellent tutorial I learned that it would not handle my speakers. :)

Wonderful very easy to understand presentation, there's a lot of vids out there but this one is really makes me easily understand basic "amp to speaker matching tutorial" Thanks!!!

Excellent video; concise, accurate and easy to follow. Thanks!

Thank you for this video! It does an excellent job of summing up the pairing process as simply as possible. I've read hours of explanations online only to come away more confused. Some of the comments below are insane- the audio nuts and people who don't know what they're talking about strangely sound similar. This video just goes over the process of pairing a set of speakers to an amplifier properly. It does not cover speaker sensitivity, etc. because it doesn't matter at this point. He's clearly working with a PA system for a venue. While your home listening needs will most certainly be different in terms of speaker sensitivity, speaker size, etc. the concept is the same. If you're going for audiophile quality sound, pre amps, filters, etc. all come into play, but again, it doesn't matter at this point. Great video!

This is the best explanation for ME I have found. Thanks so much!

Thank you so much. This is the first video I've seen that actually speaks to people who have little or no knowlege of the subject.

Usually don't write comments but I liked your video and thought it was super helpful. Thanks a lot. Made things really easy.

Thanks for uploading Christ. This video is very helpful... Great video!!!

Chris this is wonderful very informative and made simple. Keep it up Bru!

That was helpful. Exactly what I needed. Thanks.

You are my savior dude,thanks for the video.Thumbs up!

Great question! Using 1 speaker at a time should be just fine. You can run in mono as long as your speakers are matched properly. What type of PA system do you have (i.e. speakers, amplifier, mixer, wattage rating, etc.)?

Nice flip/catch @ 4:00. Really though, This explanation made it all sooooo understandable. Great vid!

That's very nice, well done and simple, though I would have added the calculation in wattage for 2 pairs of those speakers, because the xti 2002 would have been insufficient for 4 of those speakers, you would have needed a second amplifier, and thus the logic and reason for the bridging function becomes more apparent. I also would have talked about total wattage as opposed to watts per channel, as many manufacturers list their amplifiers that way. Thus you have a 1600 watt amp, not an 800 watt amp. Otherwise, outstanding job!

hey, nice vid! but just for peace of mind and 100% sure before I buy some 100w warfdales will they work ok without risk of damage if I run them on my teac 200w amp?

Thanks for the quick response! Well, right now we have a 300-watt Yamaha EMX312SC Mixer with two Yamaha S112V Club Speakers (350 watt program handling each). I realized after watching your video that we're at a risk of damaging our mixer, so we're currently looking into trading up for the Yamaha EMX512SC mixer.

Hi, Your info is so good and clear. Please help in the case, i have TDA7560 4 Ohms 45 W-Max 51 W then, what is voltage & amp to apply and which speaker is suitable?

completely new to this type of thing thanks for simplifying a bit I recently got a dean markley dmc-80 amp and don't know much about it. just want to know if I can hook up a mic also don't know what type of adapter I need to let it play 1/8 male end I could send photos to see what I have thanks

Very informative video and easy to follow too. Thanks!