wired speakers

[Geoff Davey]

will my brennan b2 drive a pair of bookshelf speakers?

Geoff

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

You can connect 8 ohm 50 watt bookshelf speakers

Fred

[PMB]

Hi Geoff,

The B2 has a 15 watts per channel stereo amplifier built in, which should sufficient for bookshelf speakers. The speakers should ideally be 8 ohms but the B2 will drive 6 ohm and 4 ohm speakers albeit at lower volume settings.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Davywhizz]

Just to add, you don't need to stick to 50W speakers, many bookshelf speakers are rated a lot higher. That's OK, but you need some that aren't too hard to drive, given the B2's power limitations. The key issue is "sensitivity", Speakers ought to have a sensitivity rating listed in their specs, in decibels (dB). 87/88 is about average, above that would usually be better for a lower-powered amp, whereas a lower sensitivity figure would mean less available volume. As ever, it partly depends on how loud you like your music and how big your room is.  My hifi amp is 30W per channel and the speakers are 86dB (so not the easiest to drive) but it all works well, the amp volume is set higher than it would be for more sensitive speakers, but well within its limits.

[Daniel Taylor]

The power rating on speakers is the maximum they can take comfortably without distorting and possible damage.  So as long as the speaker power rating is greater than the amp power, things should be fine.  Even if the amp power is greater, as long as you keep the volume reasonable, the amp won't be putting out it's total power.

If the amp power is 100w, and the speaker are only rated at 50w, and you like to crank up the volume and rock out, that's when you have to worry about blowing a speaker.  Happens in the college dorms where sometimes education happens the hard way.