... for rear surrounds? One of the dealers where I have been listening to speakers mentioned getting a good quality receiver. His point being that I really don't need 125W to the rear surrounds. With a receiver I may lose a bit of power to the fronts while driving all chanels, a decent quality (NAD T773 for instance) should provide ample power.

Now I am confused (which is nothing new).

Any advice, $.02, or opinions??

I think that he made a valid point that you don't need anywhere near as much power for the surrounds!!!

It is well accepted that the fronts and center use the most power. I have been looking, for over a year now, for some metrics that show the power distribution for 5.1 and 7.1 systems as a function of the type of music. Haven't found anything.

I'm also wondering if Peak Power capability is more important than RMS Power capability. Haven't found anything much on this either.