Well, my hearing isn't as good as Sean's anymore but it won't stop me from putting 2cents worth in. Designing speakers is a trade off, no? You cannot have 1) a small speaker, 2)an effecient speaker and 3) bass. (see www.trueaudio.com/st_trade.htm). Lots of people like fairly small speakers (spouse appeal, size of listening room ect)and therefore effeciency is often given up. This requires more power and its lots of power. If you listen at 5 watts nominal, because you have an ineffecient speaker, and want to handle a 20db peak you need about 640 watts of power right? Otherwise you clip.
SS amps. Why so much power?
I though that there was so much tube amp talk on this page lately, I'd put up a SS thread. Why do so many people buy the big SS amps that have 200,300,500 watts of power? Is it because the speaker you want is inefficient and you need lots of power, or do you need to play real loud? Or is it a status thing, like my amp's bigger than your amp, or what? Do you buy a big amp first, and then look for a speaker with high power handling? Or do you pick a low efficiency speaker you like and then look for a big amp to drive it? Do you subscribe to the idea that if you have alot of watts, the amp will sound better at lower volumes? I've noticed that the majority of AudiogoNers go with high power SS amps and low efficiency speakers. What gives?