I think it's great to dispell long held beliefs, such as you don't need $6000 dollars to buy a good 'sounding' amp. That's what made it so easy to purchase my Emotiva for $600 bucks, because I now know that 1 watt = 1 watt.
But one thing that may get lost in translation while reading all of this is that we should all go down to Radio Shack, pick up their cheapest 7.1 channel reciever, and think we're going to be ok. There is a difference in recievers, even if coloration isn't one of them.
My case and point, I've owned my Denon 4802 for about 8 years now. And ever since everything went the way of HDMI, I've been dying to upgrade to something with HDMI. But I've been confused about what I really needed, and what was just 'fluff'. So I got my hands on a Sherwood NewCastle 772 to test out it's HDMI features. The very 1st thing I noticed was how small the Sherwood was next to the mighty Denon. When I picked it up I thought perhaps it was a pre-pro... "How in the world can this thing be this light"?
When I moved the Denon to make way for the Sherwood it was two inches taller, 6 inches longer & weighed about 20 pounds more than the tiny (in comparison) Newcastle! It wasn't just a slight difference, it was like switching from a Ford Excursion to a Volkwagen Golf. I thought, "my God did they fill this thing with lead to make it hurricane proof"???
Ok so I knew from all the discussions on here that it wouldn't matter, it would still sound the same as my Denon. And as far as anything from half volume on down I would say this is correct. But when the volume goes up past 35 (the Sherwood goes from 0 to 70 on the volume scale where the Denon went from like -60 to +12) I could definately tell that something was missing. And that something was POWER!!! It first hit me when I accidentally sat on the remote control & it shot up to something near max, and it sounded like total SHIT!!! This poor Sherwood just does not have the juice it takes to keep the M80's happy, not by a long shot. And although the Denon is only rated to run 25 watts per channel more than the 772, let me just state for the record that the actual disparity is much greater than that.... MUCH! But even though the Denon commands the M80's with much more authority than the Sherwood could ever hope to, it still bows to the massive power reserves of the XPA-3. And keep in mind the Emotiva out weighs the Denon without any of that processing stuff to bog it down any. So does that mean pounds equals power? Not hardly. I would never go out shopping for a reciever with a scale under my right arm. But it did make me realize that those big, massive recievers/amps are that way for a reason.
Now not everyone will use the 300 watts of the Emotiva, hell I don't even use ALL of them. And yes I'll admit that for 98% of what I do, the Denon would suffice just fine. However I could not hit max volume with the Denon, it did start clipping a bit when I tried it before. Not nearly as garbled as it was when I accidentally blasted the Newcastle, but the Emotiva simply plays the M80's with complete authority all the way from -60 to +12 (with the Denon acting as a pre/pro... The Sherwood has no pre-outs, so I can't hook the Emotiva up while using it). I realize most of you have no interest in seeing +12 on the volume dial. I guess I just like having that peace of mind knowing if a buddy ever says, "say man how loud does this thing play", I can say, "well let me show you", & blow the roof off of the house for him.
I would not feel comfortable taking this Sherwood up past probably 55 for anyone. Most people have no clue what clipping is, or dynamic headroom, or THD or any of that good stuff. Not even if you sat there and tried to explain it to them. All they know is if you tell them you spent upwards of four grand on your home theater (while most of them probably thought their $150 dollar home theater in a box was 'expensive'), and then it starts breaking up when you turn it up too high... well they're going to think you're the biggest sucker to ever live.
Lol, hell I realize all that balogna is beneath the vast majority of you guys. But it does mean something to me. Enough to spend $600 bucks purchasing an amp that would drive my M80's to their full potential whether I use that potential very often or not. So no, there may not be any sound quality differences between the 100 watt per channel Sherwood Newcastle and the 125 watt per channel Denon paired with the 300 watt per channel Emotiva. But there is a major difference in how my speakers behave when I feed them all the power they ever thirst for.
Oh and one last thing... I played the Sherwood at the very peak of its performance level (where it was still playing fairly smooth, with minimal distortion), which was around 55 on the dial for about 6 minutes and then the reciever shut down completely due to the protection circuts kicking in. This is something I never experienced with the Denon..... EVER!
