If Electrical Engineers with good sense were the only ones making and buying audio products there would be little reason to quibble over 60, 75, 90 or 100 watts. But then enter the average marketing department and John Q. Public where the perception of performance for all equipment is reduced to a set of specifications which tell only part of the story and for which JQP has at best only half the knowledge he needs to both interpret and look beyond the specs.

Of course there are designers and companies that are not all about mass market appeal, but they do compete in an arena that includes such marketing and JQP consumers and a 'positioning of products' becomes necessary. Match that with the idea that the minimum meaningful increase in wattage is about a factor of two, and you have a product line that is 65, 125, and 200 or 300 watts respectively.

This is not an all-out criticism of JQP consumers. Most consumers want a way to judge and compare, but all that matters has not been reduced to commonly available specs and hence there is much wiggle room for marketing and a fair amount of uncertainty for JQP to wade through because rarely is “all else equal.”