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<blockquote data-quote="audioholic" data-source="post: 7238825" data-attributes="member: 549629">There&#039;s a difference between hooking an amp to a set of comps that is rated for double their rated power, and actually supplying them double their rated power continuously. You&#039;ve either gained your amp&#039;s output back significantly, so its not really outputting double the speakers&#039; rated power, or the speakers you have were rated very poorly by their manufacturer.When people &#039;overpower&#039; their speakers by a significant amount, and call it headroom, this simply means the amp is gained down to lower its output to the level the speakers can handle, and all that wattage you removed from the output will go towards peak demand periods when an amp would normally start clipping immediately. This is why SQ guys like to &#039;overpower&#039; their front stage, its a distortion reducing tactic for those peak output periods when the amp can draw significantly more power (and produce more output) than its rated for (or that it&#039;s gain/sensitivity is adjusted to).The misconception that people are truly &#039;overpowering&#039; their speakers by 2x, 3x or more times their rated power, stems from the same basic misunderstanding of rated power versus actual power that creates the misconception I address in my sig. Just because an amplifier is rated for X number of watts does not mean its outputting that many watts when the volume knob is turned all the way up, due to conditions such as gain settings, and system voltage for loosely regulated amps. It may be outputting less than rated, and it may be outputting more.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="audioholic, post: 7238825, member: 549629"] There's a difference between hooking an amp to a set of comps that is rated for double their rated power, and actually supplying them double their rated power continuously. You've either gained your amp's output back significantly, so its not really outputting double the speakers' rated power, or the speakers you have were rated very poorly by their manufacturer. When people 'overpower' their speakers by a significant amount, and call it headroom, this simply means the amp is gained down to lower its output to the level the speakers can handle, and all that wattage you removed from the output will go towards peak demand periods when an amp would normally start clipping immediately. This is why SQ guys like to 'overpower' their front stage, its a distortion reducing tactic for those peak output periods when the amp can draw significantly more power (and produce more output) than its rated for (or that it's gain/sensitivity is adjusted to). The misconception that people are truly 'overpowering' their speakers by 2x, 3x or more times their rated power, stems from the same basic misunderstanding of rated power versus actual power that creates the misconception I address in my sig. Just because an amplifier is rated for X number of watts does not mean its outputting that many watts when the volume knob is turned all the way up, due to conditions such as gain settings, and system voltage for loosely regulated amps. It may be outputting less than rated, and it may be outputting more. [/QUOTE]

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