Yes....you can... You can use 200 watt speakers with 100 watt receiver...you can use 100 watt speakers with a 200 watt receiver...I have used 100 watt speakers with a 400 watt amp... As long as the amp has clean power and does not clip, you will be ok using them together.... Amp clipping (distortion) is what kills speakers 99% of the time...
I had these 80 watt speakers hooked up to 100 reciever a while back and my wife would blast the radio and I could hear popping coming from them.Does that mean they were ready to blow if she kept it up?
Anytime you hear popping or distortion or the sound changing to bad from good, then you are headed towards blown speakers... If you have 100 watt speakers and an 80 watt receiver that does not mean that you can push the volume all the way up and you will be safe because of a 20 watt cushion....With home audio you do not have gains on the amps like you do in car audio....Once you push the volume up too far, you will get distortion....If you turn the bass EQ knob up, it will cause distortion sooner usually because the amp in the receiver is working even harder to push out the wattage....If your ears are hearing bad things from the speakers, first thing you need to do is turn it down because you are overpushing either the speakers or the amp...You can push speakers too far and push the driver beyond the limits of the suspension. You can also push the amp too far and push out a clipped signal...When a clipped signal is passed into the speakers the speaker doesn't know a clipped signal from a non clipped...It just trys to reproduce whatever signal comes in...Clean signals are linear and make the speaker cone move straight out and straight back to rest...Clipped signal will cause the speaker to move in a way it is not designed to do and that is when damage occurs... Usually if you have double the power in the amp than the speaker is rated for, it will just give you more headroom...as long as you don't get crazy with it (push the volume up untill you hear popping or distortion) then you will be fine...Use your ears as the guide....You can blow a 100 watt speaker with 20 watts of power if you clip it by pushing the amp too far...
