Speaker Wattage??? Receiver channel output???

[chasehornby55]

Hey guys,

So i love my PC, i have spent hours and hours building, upgrading and babying my computer. It now comes time to rig out my PC and Tv with a speaker system but i am a huge neophyte when it comes to audio. I have an oldish Harmon Kardon receiver that outputs 50 watts per channel. Now i am interested in a pair of speakers which requires 100 watts of power. I work with a man who is a dj and owns his own audio company (which sells audio equipment for industrial use). He knows his stuff about audio to put it frankly and i was asking him if that would work (that being the 50 watt receiver with 100 watt speakers). He went off on telling me that it may not only cause a bit of distortion with the audio but that under powering the speakers can be bad too. He then continued on about how you should account for a margin of error with the wattage and some stuff involving numbers... Needless to say i got lost very quickly, but i dont want to ask him again. This is why i am here, i was hoping someone could explain the relationship between channel wattage and speaker wattage. Also if you could touch on the statement that under wattage can be bad and that number part about margin of error (vague i know sorry). Just any info in this topic would really help, also if you know any websites that explains "audio" (vague again sorry) to people with as much knowledge on it as a two year old it would be great.

Sorry for the long description, thank you all

 

[scout_03]

to be simple the point it was telling you that 50 watts and could fail if you try to supply power to 100 watts speaker she will be working at is limit .

 

[americanaudiophile]

It is complicated but here is the way it works for home use rather than pro sound. The speakers have a suggested range of power not a "wattage". If you want or need the speaker to play as loud as they can play you will need to max out the power. If you have more power it is not a bad thing so long as you control your volume. If you don't having this extra power can blow the woofer. If you don't have enough power and you try to get your receiver to produce more power than it can it will produce audible distortion which can damage tweeters.
Check the specs of the particular speaker system and it will give you that range.

 

[chasehornby55]

Thank you for the replies! Im putting the speakers in a smaller room so i will never have to crank the volume. would i be ok to use speakers that are double the power output of my receiver