Need advise on my system

[sallysue]

It's more rare but you can over power a speaker by the cone being pushed out further than it was meant to go. Going past it's designed excursion. So using a true 500 watts on a 250 watt speaker could lead to problems if the amp was turned to full throddle

I was speaking of full throttle and kidding more or less - of course you don't have to turn up the amp full throttle.I understand decibels but thanks for the link.

I'm reminded of a question I asked Dr. Toole (in person) of Harmaon Kardon International.

How much amplified power do you recommend for the average system?

"All you need is about 50 quality watts, that's all"

Dr Toole is the chief scientist for HK (Revel, Infinity,Crown,JBL,Lexicon,HK and others) and his doctorate is in physics. Paul Barton (PSB) trained under Dr. Toole before starting his own company.His name is as famous in the speaker industry as M. Jordan is in the basketball business.

I'm not taking a side either way on amplified power - but there you have it.

[Kevio]

The rating I saw for the Polks is "250 W continuous power". Maybe I'm being misled but I take that to mean you can drive these at 250 W RMS indefinitely and they won't smoke.

The distinction between peak and continuous power is important because the difference between the two can be 10 dB or more in terms of level or about 10x in terms of power.

I agree with everyone else here that if you overdrive a lower powered amp, you can blow the tweeters even in robust speakers. I like Blackraven's idea of trying to get an amp that has good behavior (e.g. soft clipping) when overdriven.