Quote Originally Posted by GMichael View Post
Don't assume that my budget is any better than yours. The OP asked what was better, not what was cheapest.

By the way, I am also type two. I also spent the last 6 weeks in and out of hospitals for my kidneys. None of which has anything to do with the fact that a receiver amp should be the very LAST option taken unless you have no options.

As for non technical, I do have a degree in Science and worked 12 years in the T.J. Watson Research Center.
I cannot believe he says you are non technical, but yet he makes this statement

THE truth is that a sub is probably never going to need even
the paltry 125watts put out by my receiver channel

Is this person out of his mind? Yep. In a VERY small room, 125 watts MIGHT be enough. In a larger room, no way in hell is that enough. The lower you go in bass frequencies, the more power you need. The larger the room, the more power you need. When you combine these two facts together, you need a lot of power so you don't end up over driving the amp - or even pushing the driver into compression.

In a small 12X15x10ft room I use a single H-PAS sub with a 300 watt amp. On several movies(The Haunted, War of the Worlds, and Saving Private Ryan comes to mind) the red lamp on the amp has lit up signaling that the amp is approaching its maximum power. This is with a 70db average dialog level which will produce 100db peaks at the maximum digital level of 0db. So you see, a 125 watt amp would be overloaded at that level easily.