How much power have you got under the hood?


Hello my fellow audio lovers, I am buying a new amplifier and its down to the NAD C-370 (120 wpc) or the NAD C-350 (60 wpc). I have dual 10" 3 way JBL speakers (ND-310). they can handle 250 wpc and are 91 db@1 watt 1 meter 8 ohms. I like to listen loud but i am not sure if 60 wpc is enough for me or do i need to save up a few more hundred and get the 120 wpc... How much power do you have? How much power do you think i need? I dont want to have to make the amp work real hard to give me the power i need, and i cant audition these amps in my home. So as you can see its not an easy choice. I have a reciever with 130 wpc..or so it says. and its enough power just not very clean and the amp pretty much sucks. So im upgrading. Thank you for looking.
haoleb

Showing 1 response by bob_bundus

It is much easier to blow a speaker with an underpowered amp than with an amp spec'd to at least rated speaker power handling, preferably more, or even much more especially if you like it loud. For example my speakers are rated 100 w/ch so I like around 200 w/ch amp with them. Right now I'm running 150 w/ch but that's not enough. Another amp I have is rated 350/ch but with rated 2dB headroom it pushes more like 550/ch before clipping. That one I have never heard distort & won't blow a speaker coil because I never run into clipping, which is what really kills your speakers. With a 250watt speaker, go for all the clean power that you can reasonably afford.