[Hogger]

Please forgive my newness, but I've got a great idea I think would work well for my HT, but need a little help.
I am thinking about building a set of front speakers using one 6 1/2" woofer, two 4" woofers, and a 1" tweeter in each tower.
Only thing I'm not real sure about, is the 4" woofers say they can handle 20W RMS and 40W peak. Now the Onkyo receiver that I am looking at says it puts out about 90W per channel.
So would that blow the 4" drivers?

 

[tonyvdb]

You are planning on using a three way crossover correct? Without that there is no real way of controlling what each driver receives as a signal and you would definatly blow them.

 

[Hogger]

Yes, I will use a three way crossover. I didn't know if that had anything to do with what the speakers received other than frequencies.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Anthony]

Speakers are more often blown by underpowered amps that clip at high output. That being said, running a ton of power through a tiny speaker can destroy it too.

Run with a crossover, you can expect those to perform just fine. Just know that your amp has the capability to cook the voice coils in the drivers, so don't crank it up all the way -- but it's always better to have too much amp than too little.

 

[dyohn]

For any given loudness level much more power is required at lower frequencies than at higher frequencies. For example, music played at any given level will require about 1/4 the power above 200Hz as it does at 40Hz, and about 1/10 that power above 2000Hz. The power delivered drops as frequency rises. As long as your 4" drivers are crossed above 200Hz (indeed, I'd recommend around 600Hz, depending on the fs of the driver) they will never be delivered more than about 27 watts from your receiver when cranked.

 

[Hogger]

Excellent, I think I understand it now. Thanks for the info.