Speaker under power question

gbcomp
gbcomp Posts: 1
edited September 2012 in Speakers
I am in the process of building a tube amplifier and I'm shopping around for some nice speakers to go with it. I really like Polk Audio Monitor 30/40 series II, but the minimum power requirement is 20 Watts. The amp I am building has a max power output of 17 Watts. I now under powering speakers has potential to really hurt the speakers, would this cause any problems? If so, does any one have a recommendation for a set of sensitive lo power speakers (sub $150 per pair)?

Thanks
Post edited by gbcomp on
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  • dudeinaroom
    dudeinaroom Posts: 3,609
    edited September 2012
    I'd say look for something more efficient. I don't know if klipsh makes anything in that price range, but I would say look for some horns. Use google and look and see what is out there. You never know what kind of vintage score is out there until you look.

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  • tonyb
    tonyb Posts: 33,008
    edited September 2012
    gbcomp wrote: »
    I am in the process of building a tube amplifier and I'm shopping around for some nice speakers to go with it. I really like Polk Audio Monitor 30/40 series II, but the minimum power requirement is 20 Watts. The amp I am building has a max power output of 17 Watts. I now under powering speakers has potential to really hurt the speakers, would this cause any problems? If so, does any one have a recommendation for a set of sensitive lo power speakers (sub $150 per pair)?

    Thanks

    Under a buck and a half is going to stick you in the used catagory off craigslist. I see no reason you can't power the monitors as long as you get a good grasp on the volume control. What size room are we talking here anyway ?
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  • snyderkv
    snyderkv Posts: 14
    edited September 2012
    I heard you can blow a speaker by under powering it or burn out a receiving by over loading it for long periods of time. Not sure how true this is in your situation as that is such tiny wattage that it may not matter. Maybe that was just using incorrect ohms.
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  • onebadchad
    onebadchad Posts: 364
    edited September 2012
    17 clean watts is actually a lot of power. my old tube amp was only 3 wpc and I ran some Tannoy c10 and klipsch Ksb 1.1 great with it. i even ran my big klipsch forte quite well. My Sda speakers were not quite efficient enough but anything over 95 db @ 1w/1m works quite well
    Hello Kitty am/fm CD player
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