Receiver how many watts do i need

Fact is, more speakers get fried by underpowered amps than by uber power amps. In other words, you're more likely to "blow up" a speaker with a 25 watt amp than a watter. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic.

We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion. Settings My Profile Sign Out. Search Go. What's up with watts: how much power do you need? Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.

Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Gary Altunian. Gary Altunian was a freelance contributor to Lifewire and industry veteran in consumer electronics. He passion was home audio and theater systems. Updated on October 12, Tweet Share Email. In This Article. Match Power Requirements. Power and Volume. Measuring Power Output.

A speaker or sub will not be too big for a room, as long as it fits in. However powerful systems could reproduce an explosion with the same destructive results. For example, a speaker with a 50W RMS rating but a peak rating of W means that the speaker can easily run with 50 watts of continuous power, with occasional bursts of up to W….

Average Wattage by the Size of the Room. A receiver with 50 watts per channel should be adequate for small to medium-sized rooms or speakers above 90 decibels sensitivity.

If you have a large room or speakers below 87 decibels sensitivity, try and get watts or more. Weaker amplifiers may distort these sounds, creating an experience that can be difficult to diagnose if you don't know where to look. Speakers are rated to handle a certain amount of watts, which is oftentimes found on the back.

If you have an amplifier that outputs watts, but your speaker is rated to handle up to 70 watts, you can still use the amplifier, but you'll have to ensure the volume isn't cranked up all the way, or you risk breaking the speakers. Luckily, speakers will begin to distort their sound, letting you know to turn the volume down before it's too late.

How do you find out what watts per channel a receiver has? You look at the product description or spec sheet, right? While this can indicate what it is aiming for, it is important to know that these ratings aren't a true indicator of how much power they can put out at a continuous rate or even through all of your speakers. A lot of times, a manufacturer will put a relatively high watt per channel rating in the product description but fail to indicate that it is only capable of that power output for about a second or two or that it only applies to using one channel at a time.

Remember the Denon speaker we mentioned earlier? It can go that high for short bursts, but it isn't capable of sustaining that. Great for explosions, not so great when you are expecting to listen to watt-level sound continuously. We briefly went over that watt ratings aren't an indicator of quality, rather it is how powerful of a sound a receiver can output. If that is your main goal, there are plenty of reasonably priced AV receivers out there that can offer booming sound without getting too high in price.

Still, if you are curious about how much you should be spending, we will be going over this topic to give you an idea of what to look for. AV receivers, in general, are sophisticated, and so most of the time, they will at least cost you the amount of money you'd pay for a game console or a UHD Blu-Ray player.

In this price range, you are looking at 5. Surround sound with anywhere between watts of continuous power per channel with approximately watts in bursts. They will also support 4K HDR video as long as you aren't looking at a too old model, meaning if you have a TV that supports 4K, you can enjoy the benefits of a superior image overall. Surround sound. This is a good place to start because it can get your foot in the door in making a great entertainment center setup.

If you start from scratch, you can save some serious money by building a setup around these budget speakers. You get Dolby Atmos support and 7. In terms of value for what you get, this is one of the best on the market. The next step up isn't too far off from budget territory, and you will be rewarded for spending the extra cash.

You will also start seeing slightly more watts per channel at the low-mid range than what you get out of budget receivers, and as you go higher, the difference becomes more significant.

Additionally, better components start to get used, which improves audio and build quality. Look into this price range if you try to replicate a movie theater sound experience in your home and want quality life features such as Wi-Fi. Look into the upper-midrange if you would like a step up in build quality and have relatively high-end speakers to take advantage of the superior audio quality they deliver.

But if you want to go beyond and demand the best. What does this hefty price get you? You will generally see a huge spike in watts per channel, anywhere between w, depending on how high you go.

The components will also be especially premium and well put together to offer the best sound possible.