is my amp too big for my speakers? seems like a simple question...

[HooBass]

but i can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere. anyway, i'm getting a yamaha powered head that puts out 300W/channel. i use three 16ohm peavey personal monitors rated at 50/100/200 RMS/Program/Peak. by my calculations and understanding, that means running them in parallel the 300W amp will push 100W per speaker at 5.33ohms.

 

my questions are:

 

1. is my math correct?

2. will this blow my monitors up since the RMS is only 50W @ 4ohms?

 

bearing in mind we never turn our monitor levels up past 1/2 way on the head. also, each monitor has a volume control on the back which we typically leave set between 5 and 8 (out of 10). i would assume that the volume knob would cut the power to the speakers enough to keep their power handling below the 50W threshold even if we cranked the PA volume to 100% (which, mind you, we don't plan on doing. just for sake of argument here).

 

sorry if this is a total noob question. i've actually been in bands for years, just never found a decent reference to answer a question like this. thanks!

[jwlussow]

The ohms math is correct. What do you mean by a 16 ohm speakers being rated at 50 watts @ 4 ohms? The ohm load is at the amp, not the speaker. How can a 16 ohm speaker be 4 ohms? You speakers handle 50 watts RMS. You are feeding them 100 or their program rating. I don

[HooBass]

my understanding of all this stuff is as follows:

 

my PA puts out 300W at 4ohms. so if i connect a 4ohm speaker to it, that speaker must be able to handle 300W.

 

i have three 16ohm monitors that run in parallel. so daisy-chained together they represent a 5.33ohm speaker load as far as the amp is concerned. each speaker then accepts 1/3 of the 300W total output of the PA amp, or 100W. but since the total resistance of the speaker load is slightly more than 4ohms, each speaker is getting slightly less than 100W.

 

so, based on this, if i turn the PA all the way up, it will be pushing close to 100W continuously into each speaker, and since they're only rated to handle 50W RMS, they'll pretty quickly blow up. but, if we only turn the volume (and thus, the power output) of the PA up half way, that will only put approximately 50W into each speaker, which they should be able to handle.

 

so what i need to know is whether or not my logic above is correct, and if it's not, what in my thinking is wrong.

[Unalaska]

The amp can still put out a full 300w but backing of the attenuator only means it takes more pre-amp stage to reach full power. Yeah, you're overpowered.

 

If it's working for you then keep it the way it is. If not then change it. Little speakers like that are most damaged by low end: from bass and kick, scooped guitars played loud, vocal mics dropped.

[Gordon Sound]

You should be fine, in fact giving your self some headroom and power loss from the l-pads its about right.