steveng: i did not mean to point fingers, its what I know... and other people agreed. and I basically do read most of the site... you could have responded in 1 post not 3....

as a counterpoint, think of it this way. jon doe wants to play music, he likes it loud. so he turns it up. he will most likely blow them on lower powered speakers because the speakers are straining and trying a lot harder to reproduce the sound w/ less power. with more power, its not trying as hard to reproduce the same sound level. Granted that its usually the owner who blows them... but of COURSE> who else will blow them? you also blow high powered speakers because of the user and basically everything else in the car. In the same conditions, you will blow a low powered speaker faster than you blow a high powered one (ie from an amp) at the same sound level soley because they throwing farther and "fluttering" to recreate the sound at the desired level.

as an analogy... what would last longer a lawn mower engine doing the work of 4 cyl. or your 4 banger in a accord?

What you said is correct to a certain extent. but some more epensive speakers actually could be more fraile and need a cleaner signal to recreate a better sound. did you know paper still recreates the best sound? but they are not as durable. so all that poly-whater and butyl rubber are there for durability. so you are right to a certain extent... its also technology related,r&d and how the parts of the speaker interact are factors in cost.

you seemed to be hung up on this subject cuz you definately said you weren't going to talk about it anymore in the first post... then came the second one...

an amp's rms is rarely higher than the max power a speaker can handle... and yes if you do this you are an idiot. i am not.