I have an Onkyo receiver that is pushing 110 watts per channel. What happens if a get a speaker that is only rated at 100 watts power output?

 

I would suspect that if you have the volume too loud you could potentially blow the speaker out.

 

My receiver is rated at 110 watts of continuous power per channel, with a maximum of 160 watts per channel.

 

Don't blast it... Is that speaker wattage peak or RMS?

Mike

 

Unless your a bonehead you'll be fine, overpowering(with in reason) is better then underpowering. Most all consumer level electronics and speakers are very capable of working a little bit outside of there specified range with no ill effect.

I had a set of speakers that were rated from 2 watts to 200 watts and while I was waiting for a new amp to come in I was using an amp rated at 300 watts, conservatively rated. The speakers were VonSchweikert DB99 mkII's which are $15k speakers and the amps were Parasound JC-1 monoblocks, so it wasn't walmart shit with super exagerated power handling and output.

 

edit for above, I just checked the specs on the JC-1's and they were rated at 400 watts into 8 ohms

 

I have to assume that this is RMS wattage.

 

Nothing will happen. The difference is 10watts, hardly a difference.

Overpowering is better then underpowering. I was running a 250W/channel continuous pro amp through 6" bookshelf speakers for years without a problem.

 

the Onkyo is probably not really pushing 110 watts anyway, especially if it's in full surround mode.

 

This will make the music sound rich.
You always want an amp that is bigger than the speaker otherwise it will not sound good.

 

As someone who has been into high end audio for over half of my life, I have never experienced a relationship between "rich sound" and using more power then the speakers recommend.

 

And you can do that with less wattage as well

 

That was what one of my friends said. He fixed TV, stereo, gps, xm, etc for living. He said if the amp didn't have enough power to drive the speaker, it was not going to sound good. He told me that it was better that the rating from the amp was a certain percent higher than the speaker.

I just take his words for it...