Well,it looks like I will be going with the M80's for my front speakers. Now all I need to do is purchase an amp that will compliment them. Unfortunately it has not been a straight forward process. I have read reviews on everything from the Outlaw M2200 monoblocks to the Mcintosh MC252.

The one amp that really looks enticing to me is the Emotiva XPA-2, it will be available in march for $799.00. It will do 500wpc into 4 ohms, this seems perfect for these speakers. Is an amp at this price is to good to be true? Other vendors charge double this price or more for this power.

Anyone have some experience with Emotiva products?

If you do a search on "emotiva", there have been many threads. Some Axiom owners have been happy with their products, I was not so lucky. If it was me and you are using m80's, I would look around as much as you can. Granted, I owned the MPS-1 for 3 months. At the time it was their king of the hill amp, and suppose to be stable down to 1ohms. The amp kept shutting down during explosions during action movies, or when I would turn up some rock music from time to time. Heck, my Denon 2805 never shut down even at higher levels.

Does you room size and listening habits justify a seperate amp?

My room size is 19'x20' with a 8'-14' pitched ceiling. In addition to to room size, the living room (where the speakers will be) opens into the kitchen area.

My room is 31ft x 30ft x 9ft and for the most part the Denon 2805 did just fine by itself. I do however use Odyssey monoblocks to drive my 80's. Unless you really crank it up loud you may not need seperate amps. The 80's are very efficient and don't take much power to play real loud.

You might find this a bit crazy but one of the main reasons I'm looking for a amp to drive the M80's is so I can have efficiency at low volumes. Although cranking it up here and there wont be bad either

I don't think the amp would have anything to do with efficiency at low to moderate volumes. In fact, you would be hard pressed to recognize any difference between that and an integrated receiver. The efficiency of the speaker is what is important.

The Axiom m80's are rated at 95dB's or so efficient "Inroom", which only requires "1" watt to achieve at 3ft distance. So an AMP with 200-300 watts of power will be no different.

The difference comes in at higher levels where you need enough headroom for dynamic peaks. For the majority of people, a decent 100watt or so receiver is more than adequate.

Not trying to detour you from getting an outboard amp, just making sure you understand that in most cases you will never use those extra watts.

Go with Rotel

Rotel does make a great 5.1 setup.

Throw in some onion, hot peppers and some cilantro and there ya have some real good salsa. Oh don’t forget a bit of garlic

Hey Rick, are you ready for tonight and tomorrows storm for the area, I'm guessing you guys are in it as well? Better go get some of those ingrediants before you get snowed in.