Matching receiver and speaker wattage

[irsninja]

My dad is letting me use his old harmon kardon AVR 254. Its a 7*50w receiver for a total of 350w. I have a few questions.

1. What is the max wattage of a speaker I can use per channel without noticing problems/ causing damage.
2. Its rate for 8 ohms, does this matter at all?
3. If I do a 2.1 system instead of 5.1/7.1, can the other channels use the extra power?

 

[Alabalcho]

1. You can connect any wattage' speaker - you will either put them on fire, or under-utilize them.
2. It does, and then a lot.
3. Each channel has its own amplifier, designed to be connected to sepaarte speaker, so - no.

 

[americanaudiophile]

1. With 50 watt per channel into 8 ohms you can generally use any speaker rated with a minimum rating of 20 watts or less. The maximum should be 50 watts or higher. The important spec is the efficiency of the speaker. This number tells you how loud the speaker will play at 1 meter in front of it with one watt of power. If you want to play loud (especially in a big room) you want this number to be higher rather than lower.
2. The receiver power rating is into 8 ohms. Usually this means that you want speakers with 6-8 ohms impedance. Since they don't give a power rating into 4 ohms if is best to avoid these.
3. Since the amp channels share the same power supply if you use only 2 speakers the receiver will produce 65 watts for stereo. The specs on the receiver reflect this.
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/65696/Harman-Kardon-Avr-254.html?page=74#manual

 

[irsninja]

1. With 50 watt per channel into 8 ohms you can generally use any speaker rated with a minimum rating of 20 watts or less. The maximum should be 50 watts or higher. The important spec is the efficiency of the speaker. This number tells you how loud the speaker will play at 1 meter in front of it with one watt of power. If you want to play loud (especially in a big room) you want this number to be higher rather than lower.
2. The receiver power rating is into 8 ohms. Usually this means that you want speakers with 6-8 ohms impedance. Since they don't give a power rating into 4 ohms if is best to avoid these.
3. Since the amp channels share the same power supply if you use only 2 speakers the receiver will produce 65 watts for stereo. The specs on the receiver reflect this.
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/65696/Harman-Kardon-Avr-254.html?page=74#manual

Ok, so im thinking about getting some pioneer andrew jones floorstanding speakers for my room. They have an 87 db sensitivity and 130w RMS power. They are rated at 6 ohms so I believe they might benefit by getting a slightly higher wattage? In any case, would this be to much of a stretch for the receiver if i'm listening at reasonable volumes with the stero setup??

 

[ien2222]

At reasonable volumes, the HK will be just fine to use, even at somewhat unreasonable levels it'll still fine.

With the 87dB sensitivity, when using 32 watts you'll be ~100dB at one meter.