There is more to be gained from having plenty of headroom with modestly sized speakers in a normal sized room than most folks realize -- http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/headroom/headroom.html
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To determine how much power you need for spirited sessions with orchestral reference material, consider that prolonged median 95dB of average playback levels measured at the listening seat are loud. This is something average loudspeaker sensitivities of 88dB/1w/1m will accomplish with less than 20 watts in an average room. To build in 20dB headroom above that median level for short-term peaks could require up to 2000 watts on paper since power proceeds in logarithmic function. Is that realistic - 2000 watts?