Quote Originally Posted by markw
Most any power amp will wipe the floor with most any receiver. Power amps are designed with one thing in mind.. power (duh)!

The transformer in the power amp probably weighs as much as the entire receiver does. More iron means more available power to the speakers. Toroids are a different animal.

Likewise, all that available power is devoted full time to two power amps only. No sharing bewteen a tuner, processor and 5 (or 6) power amps.

The best of both worlds, economically speaking, is to have a receiver of moderate power but full features driving separate power amps. Sounds like you're on the right track.

P.S... Guess what? This post promoted me to a senior member. Does this entitle me to any discounts?
You have obviously never seen or heard receivers like Marantz 2385, 2500, and 2600. These receivers produced around 20 to 25 years ago were rated to produce 185, 250, and 300 wpc into 8 ohms respectively. They weighed about sixty pounds. The 2600 may have been the greatest stereo receiver ever commercially produced. It could deliver 400 wpc into a 4 ohm load across the audio band with both channels driven.

http://www.classic-audio.com/marantz/2600.html

They easily outperformed most separate power amplifiers of the day and they could probably still do the same today. The preamp and tuner stages of a solid state receiver require very little power and generate very little heat so in well designed receiver, there doesn't have to be any compromise. Most companies build their power amplifiers today on separate chasis as a marketing strategy, not for technical reasons. In the long ago past, the need to place two huge output transformers along with many hot vacuum tubes on an acceptably sized chasis made high end receivers impractical. With miniaturization and solid state electronics, that is no longer true.