Goodday, 

I own a set of BeoLab 3 Penta speakers that I inherited from my grandfather. Fantastic speakers that still to this day produce amazing sound. The only problem is that recently the two BeoLab 200 amplifiers in the base of the speakers started giving in, until they died completely. I brought them to a B&O dealer and after they did some research they gave me the sad news that the amplifiers were just worn out from almost 40 years of service and a lot of components had to be replaced. But due to the fact that some of those components are very high-end or hard to find nowadays such a repair would cost me €500+ per amplifier and as a poor student that is simply way over my budget. But obviously I don't want to render these beautiful speakers useless so my plan is to bypass the BeoLab 200's alltogether and hook up the Penta's directly to an external amplifier with some speaker cable, basically converting them to BeoVox Penta's (I've checked, this is possible). Now, I understand that by dismissing the BeoLab 200 I will lose a lot of the quality of the sound and hooking these speakers up to a budget-friendly medium-quality amplifier might be considered a waste to some. But for me it's better then not being able to use them at all, and besides I'm not that much of a music connoisseur to really hear the difference very well. 

So on to the question what amplifier to buy. I'm not an expert in hifi so I had to do some research and it all didn't seem that hard; just buy an amplifier that matches the impedance of your speakers and has at least the same power handling capabilites and preferably a bit higher. Even more so; I figured if I just look for amplfiers with the exact same specs as the BeoLab 200 I should be safe. But after checking the specs of the Penta and the BeoLab 200 there are a few things that are still not totally clear to me and that I would like to understand before spending money on a receiver:

- There's RMS output and there is peak output, all very understandable. But then there is also something called IHF power output, which from what I can find basically is the same as peak power output?

- The spec sheet for the BeoLab 200 that I found on this site (https://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=381) gives an RMS output higher then the IHF power output. How does that work? Should that not be the other way around? And it also lists a 'power output music' that is even higher?

- The spec sheet for the BeoLab Penta (https://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=808) lists a long-term power output of 320 watts, which is more then double of what I thought the Penta's are capable of. It also states a maximum noise power of 150 watts. Shouldn't long-term power output be lower then maximum output? Am I interpreting that wrong?

- Multiple articles I found advice that it would be best to choose an amplifier that has about a 1,5 times higher output then your speakers. But the Penta's and BeoLab 200's match up exactly at 150W (from what I understand). So should I also be safe with a 150 amplifier or should I look for something higher?

As you might have noticed I've gotten a bit lost in all the different numbers and power ratings. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to explain my troubles as clearly as possible. I hope someone can help me make some sense of it so I can buy the right amplifier for my speakers.

Thank you!