Speaker & receiver wattage clarification

 

Scott
I was looking at some Klipsch speakers and they stated that the wattage was 50 watts continuous and 200 watts max.

If I have a receiver that puts out 110 watts per channel, will I damage the speaker or will the receiver only be putting out low levels unless I turn it up (which if I turn it up, it could go to 200 watts for a short duration). Or is the receiver going to to blow it out one of these days?

I was looking to use these for movies, etc. so they might be on for 3 straight hours. Is this even a problem? I just noticed that Klipsch states their speaker wattage differently than some and I was confused as to how much power is running through the speaker.
 

timn8ter
I really doubt you'd ever put a true 50 watts to the speakers. Without knowing what model you speaking of it sounds like they are just rather high efficency speakers (don't need much to drive them) but the max watt rating is above what your receiver puts out. Should be ok. The real culprit to watch out for is distortion. If you're playing something so loud that it's distorting turn it down. That will damage equipment faster than anything.
 

Scott
I was looking at some of the Klipsch in-wall speakers. For example the SCW-2 and RCW-5 and many other say 50 watts continuous and 200 max. For those prices I guess it would be hard to hurt them because they are probably a good quality speaker, but I was not sure.
 

timn8ter
Yep, as suspected, they are high-efficiency speakers. These are very nice as a surround speaker in rooms where it's not practical, or spouse acceptable, to place a traditional box speaker. It overcomes placement limitations by having an horizontally adjustable tweeter horn. It wouldn't be my first choice for mains unless you just want speakers for low level listening or you simply have no room to put boxes. They should be able to handle a 110 watt receiver fine.
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