Probably A Simple One

[steven22]

If I have a set of 800watt speakers, say they are 500 wats RMS(made up), is this 500 watts RMS per speaker. I'm trying to work out how to match an amp to this sort of setup

[mikel]

not necessarily simple.

a clipping (ie overdriven) amp can easily damage drivers

that said a 20 watt rms amp driven into clipping will probably never kill 250 watt rms woofers (tweeters can always be damaged by clipping amps).

800 watts is a very big number for a driver, and it sounds more like total system power or some combination of system power and peak music power (PMPO) - these specs are meaningless.

You need the rms ratings of the individual drivers to make sensible judgements.

A good rule of thumb is to have power amps above the wattage of the driver. If you hear distortion it's likely to be the speakers and you turn the volume down to prevent damage. In this way your unlikely to be driving the amps into clipping.

Judge maximum volume by the sound, not the position on the volume dial.

Without knowing the rms ratings on your drivers, go for a bigger amp per channel than eachspeaker can handle, and turn the volume down if it starts to sound like sh1t