Quote Originally Posted by magictooth
Hi!

I thought that I should post a slightly contrarian point of view. While I agree with everything that the above posters have said, you should be aware that the extra watts are not absolutely wasted.

For the most part you have a desired listening level - say 75 dB. However, the one thing that the other posters haven't mentioned is the dynamic range that most movies have. You may like listening to conversation at 75 dB, but there will be times when you get a spike in volume level such as in an explosion or even something simple like a heated argument. At those times, you want to have the extra power available to fully express the dynamics in the soundtrack.
That's a good point magictooth, and I agree with your logic, I'm just not convinced that a 5 or even 10 watt per channel difference will be of much value once you get over the 40 watt range for spikes in volume in most "moderate" sized home theater or stereo setups.
I'm only basing this on my past experience with 2 of my Marantz receivers...I ugraded to an extra 15 watts per channel from 90 to 105, and didn't notice a difference at all in performance or anything, and was kind of disappointed that I dropped money on the extra power after I realized I rarely ever come anywhere close to using it's full potential. I could be wrong because I never compared the receivers back and forth playing the same movie against each other, I was just expecting the extra power to improve sound quality or really shake the house.