ppoint

I picked up the Fortes this weekend and I'm happy to report that the little Yamaha YMC-500 seems to be doing alright. Also, I have to say something about the Fortes: wow!!!! Awesome! I'm absolutely loving listening to stuff with these. Absolutely wonderful. I'm very happy.

Thanks everyone. Interesting discussion! I've had a very positive experience for my first time posting here. Thanks. It seems wise to me. What can I say? I'm a worry-ier. I'll hook it up the new speakers to my existing equipment. If it's insufficient, I have my heart set on a new or refurbished Marantz unit. At any rate, I'll let you know how it goes!

Okay. Well, the consensus here seems to be that it should be okay to give this a try. I'll let the community know of my findings once I get the new speakers set up.

That doesnt make any sense to me Sorry, like I said, I'm pretty new to all this. What I meant is: is there a a sort of "red line" in amp output that, if exceeded, causes bad things to happen?

Thank you both for the welcome! And the fast responses! I gather that the concern is about how "clean" the power is in that first watt or two? What happens to amps (or speakers) if HT sound calls for spikes that are greater than what the amp can provide?

About "checking it out"... what would I be looking / listening for?

Hi guys, Newbie question. I have a small home theater setup consisting of the Klipsch HD500 (5.1 satellite/sub) speakers, powered by the Yamaha YMC-500 receiver. I haven't been satisfied with the HD500 for music, so I'm upgrading the speakers. Tomorrow, I'm picking up a pair of Klipsch Fortes, with Klipsch KG 1.5 for surrounds, and the Klipsch KV-3 center. No subwoofer in the new setup; I'm confident that the Fortes will do far better than the 8" sub in the HD500 kit. I'm looking forward to it! Now, I am concerned if the Yamaha YMC-500 will be adequate for the new speaker setup. It's a small receiver and low power. Frustratingly, it's own published specs are very unclear. All the manual says is: • Power Consumption: 50 W • Maximum Power Consumption 5 ch, 10% THD: 170 W Sound and Vision did a review of the YMC-500/700 a few years ago, and they published their lab results here: http://www.soundandvision.com/content/yamaha-neohd-ymc-700-media-controller-ht-labs-measures. Their key findings: Five channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads: 0.1% distortion at 15.7 watts 1% distortion at 21.6 watts Speaker output with two channels driving 8 ohm loads: 0.1% distortion at 28.6 watts 1% distortion at 45.1 watts Speaker output with two channels driving 4 ohms: 0.1% distortion at 23.3 watts 1% distortion at 50.4 watts I'm not sure if this little amp will handle the larger speakers well. I know Klipsch speakers are efficient and don't need much power, but still. Adding to my concern: I don't know what the effect may be on the speakers if I drive them with an inadequate amp. My first intuition is to simply try it out when I pick up the new speakers tomorrow. But is it possible to damage speakers if the amp is terribly inadequate? TL;DR: I have two questions: Is the low-power Yamaha YMC-500 adequate to drive Klipsch Forte speakers (fronts), Klipsch KG 1.5 (rears), and Klipsch KV-3 (center)? If I'm not sure, is it okay to try driving these speakers with the YMC-500? Or do I have to worry about damaging the speakers if the amp is that inadequate? Thank you for your time.