I'm driving the Epic 80 (7.1) off my Denon 3808 in a 14x20x8 room and have never had the Denon shut down no matter how loudly I've driven the speakers (up to ~105dB just to see how loud it'd go). I can't give much of a review of sound quality at that level as it's just too loud to do anything but cover your ears and wince when it's jamming like that.
I give another vote for "wait and see" with the Denon you have. You would have to have SERIOUS volume requirements or a monstrously big room before you'd need more power than it can provide. It may turn out that you do... However, if you can save yourself the money spent on an amp, you can dump that money into your subwoofer budget (more and/or bigger subs)
I think you'd have a much more noticeable difference putting your money into subs than an external amp to begin with given the nice receiver you already have.
PS: If you're not sold on that advice, this is the Crown amplifier mentioned above (
XTi 1000 ). 500x2 into 4 ohms for $499. Alan has just recently recommended Crown as a manufacturer that has no problem driving the 80s, so I think it's safe to say they come highly recommended.
Jason
