It somehow seems to me that you might have the wrong end of the 'rope.'

The actual SPL is what you are interested in and at what levels it can be produced so that your speakers don't distort - which will more than likely be coming from a clipping amp as you crank it up. So paradoxically enough the safest is to use an amp that is as big as you can reasonably get and the 770 would seem to fit that bill.

Basically all quality speakers should handle CLEAN (non square-wave, clipping) signals up to a 'run you out of the room' level in a decent sized room so that you are still hearing 'GOOD' sound. Bass units might 'bottom' out on some peaks but well-made bass drivers will 'recover' and rarely have permanent damage. (Clearly - one 'learns' what those peaks are 'carefully' and one avoids levels which produce them - but a good speaker should be 'forgiving' if you occasionally bottom it out 'reasonably')

But taking a usual Japanese amp - and cranking it up - will VERY often result in overloading and get you 'bad' signals which will come out as damn bad sound - and burned coils - from your speakers.

(Actually speaker engineers avoid giving 'watt' measurements for the 'durability' of speakers - and the only place where watts are used by professionals is in giving sensitivity measurements - so many dB at 1 watt, 1 kHz, 1 meter.)


[This message has been edited by Jason Kent (edited September 09, 2002).]