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I was at a store picking out speakers for my new (to me) car, and the guy attending the area told me that running 80W RMS speakers via my 50Wx4 stereo would damage and possibly blow the speakers in less than a year....

Personally, I find it odd that underpowering speakers can damage them, but I really don't know much about it. He said you need to find an amp that will power your speakers within 5-10W tolerance, RMS.
I'm sure it would sound better or louder with an amp, but seriously, do I HAVE to get one now for those speakers?

The stereo is a Pioneer DEH-1100MP, and produces 30W RMS per channel, 50W max.

The guy was wrong.

You can't blow speakers by running less power through them.

Here, look at it this way.

Lets say your car has a top speed of 140. That would be max output of your speaker.

RMS, would be average cruising speed, of 70.

Do you think it will hurt your car to drive 40mph? No.

It won't hurt your speakers in the slightest to run less than RMS power.

Find a different stereo store, those guys don't know what they're doing.

Generally speaking, believe it or not under powering a speaker can damage a speaker faster than overpowering a speaker. I know this sounds strange to a novice in the car audio field but bare with me. I am a veteran in car audio so I will try and explain it the best I can. If you under power a speaker such as subwoofer, it will begin to distort faster as you turn the volume up. Distortion is the absolute worst for a speaker to handle. If say however, you had more than enough power, you could turn the volume up to the same level with little or no distortion. It is always better to have too much power than not enough because you can always reduce the power coming out of the amp.

The good news is, in your case with running a decent pioneer deck on a set of 4 speakers that only require 80W RMS, you are just fine. this is not a big enough difference to make a difference. Just know that when you start to hear some distortion not to turn the volume up any further. What an external amplifier would do for you, however, would unlock some more of the potential that your speakers have that's all.

[Lil Snoopy]

Lol, Thats so funny. I agree with the others who said that he was wrong. I think he might have also been trying to get you to spend more money, You know how them salesmen are lol

Lol i do not know why this is "common knowledge" But its not true...
If it were the case turning your volume down you blow your speakers beacuse turning them down would be "underpowering" them
Dont worry man you dont have shit to worry about the guy is buying into a common hype with more supporting evidence against it.
Yes it would sound louder and better with an amp but your basically just turning down the "possible" volume to them.
Nothing to worry abt man the guy doesnt know his shit.
Hope this helped
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AubKMl0WxWIWa8NC38TvbIoAAAAA;_ylv=3?qid =20080803190234AAIQvJ2
Thats another question thats similiar to yours also containing excellent relivant information
EDIT:
JAMES... .WRONG

First you must know that under powering is just too little power. This in no way can harm a speakers as it's no different than having the volume down on a correctly power matched system.

Having the gain (or level control) maxed out and incorrectly set is the ONLY thing that will cause an under powered sub to be damaged. This would cause clipping which is really OVER POWERING, not under powering.

Clipping is asking the amp to push power beyond it's limits for those that don't know.

As always, see my site for more info http://spkrbox1.spaces.live.com Pay especially close attention to the link in the middle of the page.

Your equipment will thank you.

Some more unknown truths:

I can drive speakers with a 100% clipped square wave signal all day long with no problems as long as the thermal and mechanical limits of the speaker are not exceeded.

I can feed a speaker 100% distortion all day long with no damage as long as the thermal and mechanical limits of the speaker are not exceeded.

I can exceed the thermal and/or mechanical limits of a speaker and watch it fail in short order.

These are electrical and physical truths and anything else is a myth.

I will add these two sites to back up my claim:

http://www.bcae1.com/2ltlpwr.htm

http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/scripts/r...

The later is from Rockford Fosgate and has a lot of good info on the matter - they don't even mention under powering as an issue.

This has been another Public Service Announcement