HTR: How to Pick the Right Amp for Your Speakers
If you’ve ever wondered how to approach matching up a set of speakers with an amp (or AVR), but didn’t know where to start Home Theater Review has a great primer available.
But first, a caveat: this article is intended as a quick primer for beginners. As such, it contains a number of simplifications, many of them bordering on grossness. The goal here isn’t to write the definitive treatise on the subject, but rather to give budding audio enthusiasts a foundation of knowledge on which to build. To keep things simple, we’ll mostly be focusing on the characteristics of your typical solid-state amplifier and ignoring things like OTL (output transformerless) tube amps. Still, even a simple discussion of the relationship between speakers and amps can get a bit mathy; so, if you’re merely looking for a cheat sheet to help you find a new amp for your favorite speakers (or vice versa), you can skip straight to the conclusion.