I have just bought a pair of M22's and a VP150, and have a "modest" receiver. It's a Yamaha HTR-5240, and it's rated at 70W into 8 ohm. I occasionally like to listen at quite loud levels, but because the VP150 is 6 ohm, I have to put the receiver into its low impedance mode which even further limits its power. At levels above 96dB at the listening position, I notice high frequency crackling especially when the tweeters are being pushed hard. I assume the amp has begun clipping at this point, because in high impedance mode during two channel listening I can obtain slightly higher levels before the crackling sets in.
Someday I will invest in separates to alleviate this, and I know that the speakers are rated for 200W, so I'm wondering how loud in terms of dB the speakers can comfortably go. In other words, what is "reference level"? I'm not planning to hit ear-damaging levels, but on the other hand I've never had speakers with power ratings as high as these. I'd like to know mostly so that I don't buy an amp with the capability to damage the speakers. Also it would be good to know because this weekend I will be taking the speakers to my dad's, and hook them up to his dual 300W Parasound amps to see what they can really do :-)
Thanks!
-tim
