pre-school or anything.
I am! - I’m a perennial student and am a card-carrying member for life!

You’re right as far as SH talking about his speaker’s HIGH sensitivity. I do recall the almost double the power rule of thumb for 3db more @ etc. (Not watching my details on this but you get my drift).

What he caused me to contemplate is (since I hate math really a bother trying to deal with the science behind much in AV) It ‘sounds right’ to me that drawing from a amp near its idle point could create ‘grunge’. Don’t grasp the ‘why’ behind it…just makes sense. (Guess I’m digging for the why explanation behind this also…why does running at low-draw on high-current interject more noise).

So allowing for that how do you match power to your sensitivity level (speakers specs) and in a split HT/music system where you have 7 installed and the potential for a large request of power for short transients set up the system so that your not running the high-current large reserves of power at idle all the time for the majority of your listening (interjecting ‘grunge’ on your average listening). Yet protect your system from being underpowered lowering the clip threshold dangerously low? I can see if your goal is to run your amp near say 80% draw most of the time …where this would be much easier to figure out for a 2-channel system.

I assumed that often systems are set up for 2-channel with mono-blocks etc with a 5-channel added later due to the way consumers purchase….their separate system is begun with a 2-channel amp so they just purchase minimum required channels as they add speakers for a Surround setup. SH’s statement sends me to think if you expect less draw out 2-channel and try to more closely match your power range to the front channels. (so that your not running in grunge range when listening to 2-channel) and place a 5-channel on the rest with larger reserves for the sometimes more demanding draw of HT. That’s a plus for using a multi-amp configuration Vs the convenience of running one 7-channel .
Although I see many 2-channel guys putting some hefty power on the fronts so that adding a multi-channel setup will not draw too much away from these if they don’t keep the systems separate.

I’m trying to match my recent formed conclusions regarding power (you can’t have too much - and underpowered is always more dangerous than overpowered for speaker life) and my recent listening experiences when I ran into mediocre sound more often when the amps run were barely adequate to the system. – and include SH's intriguing comment about not interjecting grunge by having amplification that is (on average) running at a low percent draw rarely tapping huge reserves.