How do you know if an amplifier is being over driven?

[Philim]

Hi all
I love my hifi but on the technical aspects I'm a little out of my depth. I have a little niggle I would like some help on.

I have an arcam sa30 and focal 936k2.

Just reading the Stereophile review on the 936 and noticed the impedance drops down to 2ohms.

The arcams sa30 is rated down to 4 ohms but I've read that it outputs
136w @ 8 ohms
200w @ 4 ohms
130w @ 2 ohms but with higher THD.

Would those ratings make for a bad match?

 

[DVDdoug]

How do you know if an amplifier is being overdriven?

If you don't hear distortion everything is OK.

The 2-Ohms is probably in bass range so you might hear the bass getting "stressed". And that would only happen occasionally with certain notes/frequencies when they are loud.

Very few amplifiers are rated down to 2-Ohms so consider yourself "lucky".