[rjoseph]

I recently bought a great pair of Wharfedale Modus 1.6 speakers locally. Its rated at 170 wpc @ 8 ohms. I currently run it out of my Denon receiver (AVR-488) which I think outputs 75 or 80 wpc. I find it to be musically sound with this amplification. But my question is if I swap my receiver with a power amp maybe 125-200 wpc, will I hear a great jump in performance? If so what will be the most noticeable difference? The speakers are in a room about 30' * 20'. I use it just for music (stereo).

 

[the search never ends]

Not going to be a huge difference, I find that the cambridge Audio 840 matches up well with the Wharfedales, It;s an integrated amp, but sounds amazing for the price. The denon is fine, I just think a warmer sounding amp brings out the best in the wharfedales.....my 2 cents

 

[endless402]

if you're not using the receiver for home theatre decoding / 5.1 etc... then i would switch to an integrated amp.

power ratings are deceiving. i usually go by weight of the amp (assuming no giant heatsink)