I need a bit of advice from the techys out there.I have bought a pair of 800 watt wharfdale speakers (not the best I know) and I need to know what is the minimum wattage power amp I could use so as not to damage them,Thanks in advance Chris

 You need a bigger amp to allow headroom for bass.   It's no use having 800w speakers  coupled with a 100w amp

Edited May 26, 201510 yr by IanP

Cheers Ian,I know the basics but wondered if I need 800 or 1000 ? 

Are they a genuine 800 watt as in rated RMS ?  (Root, mean, square,)

 

some companys rate them at 800w peak to peak and these work out a lot less powerful,

 

you may also have to look at the impedance of speakers & amp and match these up.     

They're continuous 200,program 400 and peak 800 with 8 ohms

Just done a quick check 800 watt p/p is only 200 watt RMS

They're just for a pub chillout on a sunday so don't need too much power but didn't want to damage the speakers with an underpowered amp

Just seen your reply, I would go for something about 300 watt 4 ohm output, this will leave plenty of room so you don't overdrive them,

 

also if your want to add another pair of speakers at a later date, you can connect them in parallel and then the load would drop to 4 ohms.

 

you can run a 4 ohm amp into 8 ohm speakers but a bit of power will be lost, ie the 300 watt i suggested would be about 275 watt into 8 ohms,    

They're just for a pub chillout on a sunday so don't need too much power but didn't want to damage the speakers with an underpowered amp

 

You will not damage the speakers with an underpowered amp, not one of the modern ones anyway, most have speaker protection circuits built in, the older style amps if overdriven would damage the output transistors and result in the output going DC, popping your speaker cones.    

Thanks for that Tony ,it's really helpful   

K

Wharfedale have a unusual ohm reading due to the x over inside the speakers , and not all amps run sweet at 4 ohm even if it says so on the box ! I'd get a 2ohm capable amp to be sure