The polk RTI12's are rated at 50-500 watts per speaker. I would say the 400 watts per speaker is just right, not overkill. Even though i am not the person to crank the shit out of it, I wanted the extra power for better imaging. I will not run 7.1 surround until it becomes a preferred format, if it ever gets to that point. I had two extra channels and wanted to feed the power to the mains like they were intended.