Dumb lo-fi question.


I have an old (1980) Toshiba receiver that I use down at my cabin. Have been pondering a slow....very slow...upgrade path of that lo-fi system and I have a question. The receiver is rated at 25 wpc. It has two sets of left and right speaker outputs. In other words it will drive 4 speakers. Does that mean it will send 25 watts to each of the four speakers or 12.5 watts to each of the four speakers?
n80
Your amp doesn't "send" watts anywhere. Nor does it even "make" 25 watts! That number, 25 wpc, is merely a reference based on a particular set of circumstances- typically (not always!) being specified as a load of 8 ohms, across a frequency range of (again, typically) 20 to 20kHz, after having been warmed up, and delivering the rated load continuously and as measured (typically, not always!) as the root mean square (RMS) of the sine wave amplitude. 

The relevance of all this technical detail is in the fact that neither of your speakers is 8 ohms, at least not across their full response band, nor any of the other stuff. (Measurement standards now considered typical only started to become the standard right around that 1980 time frame!) Anyway, it all gets much worse when you try and drive TWO sets. Because then the power equation changes dramatically depending on how the speakers are connected- in series or in parallel. Two sets of nominal 8 ohm speakers can present a load of 4 ohms, or 16 ohms, series or parallel. Amps typically would measure twice (50 watts) at 4, half (12.5 watts) at 16. 

In any case this is almost entirely academic. What matters in the real world is how it sounds. You will turn it up until either its loud enough, or distorted enough, to stop. Or maybe until it gets hot enough (or the load drops low enough) to trip protective shutoff. A lot of gear from back then (especially when sold with multiple speaker terminals) would have thermal and load protection.
Yeah depends on many factors of course - much like millercarbon wrote. You really need to know how much power your speakers will draw from your receiver. The speakers have a sensitivity rating and an ohm rating, which is a good start. Just follow the passage from millercarbon about that ohm rating and find the sensitivity rating on the speakers.  Also, older receivers tend to need parts like capacitors.... so it may need serviced too!!
@n80 ...heck of a question. Had an older two channel HK with the same feature. Speakers A, speakers B, or both. I could never tell any difference when set to A&B. It was like the load didn't matter, still had that same power to all four.

I remember the manual didn't offer that info either, only that two channels were X amount of wattage, although something about larger/better caps for each channel.
Hmph...interesting responses above.