FAQ: Does My AV Receiver Have Enough Power for Speakers?

We are always receiving questions from our readers whether or not an AV receiver of their choosing will have "enough" power to drive their speaker system.

Q. Hello. I'm setting up a home theater and I just purchased 4 Elac Uni-Fi UB5s and one UC5. I plan to buy an HSU sub, and either a Denon AVR-X3200 or AVR-X4200 AV receiver.  I may eventually add either two rear or two atmos speakers, most likely not Uni-fis.  Andrew Jones rates the Uni-fis  as 4 ohm speakers,  but says he does so conservatively. Do you think the Denons will be able to drive that (5.1, 7.1, or 5.1.2) set up, or will I need an additional amplifier?  If so, I don't have a huge budget, so will the Emotiva UPA-500 be enough or  should I step up to the Outlaw 5000, and which  speakers would you suggest each of those amps drive? Thanks!

Denon AVR-X4100 Atmos Receiver (left pic); Elac Uni-Fi Speakers (right pic)

A. Sounds like a nice setup.  Perhaps try our little When to Add External an Amplifier Quiz  and see how you rank in terms of needing more amplification as a starting point.  I would suggest picking an Atmos receiver model that has pre-amp outputs in case you do want to add external amplification in the future. The two Denon models you selected have this feature so you should be good to go when it's time to add more power. Even just adding a nice meaty two-channel amp will certainly take the load of the AV receiver from powering up to 9 speakers at once. Properly using bass management also helps significantly as well by dumping the power hungry bass frequencies into a dedicated subwoofer(s) that is usually better equipped to handle the bass than your main speaker system.