Have you ever been asked, “How many watts are your speakers?” It’s a common question, but one that is often misunderstood. The truth is, the wattage of your speakers is a meaningless quantity and has nothing to do with the performance or loudness of your system.
Watts are a meaningful quantity when it comes to power amplifiers and how much power they can deliver into a standardized load, usually a resistive load of either 8 ohms or 4 ohms. However, loudspeakers are not purely resistive loads in 99% of cases, which means that the actual power delivery from an amplifier is impacted.
When someone asks how many watts your speakers are, they are not asking for a meaningful quantity. Instead, they are referring to the maximum power rating allowable. It’s always better to slightly overpower speakers than to underpower them, but if you put too much power into a small bookshelf speaker, for example, it will vaporize the voice coils in the drivers.
In reality, the wattage or power rating of a speaker has nothing to do with how loud or impressive it will sound. It’s more important to focus on the wattage of your amplifier, which is a meaningful quantity.
The next time someone asks you how many watts your speakers are, politely correct them and tell them how many watts your amplifier is instead. It’s a small correction, but an important one.
Do you have any audio pet peeves or terms that people throw around that are not true? Share them in the comments below, and we may cover them in a future article.