Will my speakers be damaged if I use

If ya run a low power amp into any given speaker, when it clips the excessive runaway energy will melt your drivers, especially tweeters. With too much power, you'll surpass the physical limits of the drivers, exceed their excursions, whap the voice coils against their stops, and tear the cones to shreads. Just listen, you'll hear when something's going out of spec. In general I'd rather have too much than too little. The rule of thumb is: buy the most powerful amp you can afford up to the rated limit specified by the speaker maker. But don't sweat it, maybe discovering and marking the upper limit on your level control with a pencil or a lil piece of tape is the answer. Keep the battery in your smoke alarm fresh! :-)

This is the classic audiophile question. As stated above, in the vast majority of cases, speakers are damaged by an underpowered amp, as opposed to an overpowered one. When the amplifier is driven into clipping, it puts out a square wave(a "clipped" sinewave), which is extremely destructive. A lot of electrical components in other industries are life tested by square wave testing. In a speaker, the voice coil of the tweeter gets fried. Too much power bottoms out lower frequency drivers(as Rockvirgo stated), and you will sure turn down the volume fast. Don't worry about the amp being too powerful for the speakers.

Three of the above responses recommend that you go ahead and use an amp with a power rating significantly above your speaker manufacturer's receommended limit. These people are not entirely wrong. Yes, amplifier clipping can damage tweeters. Yes, the sound of your woofer bottoming is a very audible alarm telling you to turn down the volume. So, if you take these people advice, will you be sitting back and enjoying music, or listening for potential woofer damage? Will you consciously limit the volume -- just to be careful? Will there be some records you won't play because you're concerned about their low frequency output? Contact the speaker manufacturer and tell them what you're contemplating. See if they have a recommendation.

Don't worry about to much power! Just use some common sense with the volume control. In the past I used a pair PSB 400's with a Parasound HCA 1200 II (220 wpc) at some pretty rediculous levels and never damaged a thing. Now that I have enough space again, my Carver Amazings are back in place. If high power killed speakers I'd have holes dug all over the lawn from years of doing this.