wattage

This 1000x wattage issue is misleading. The math works and so does the logic, but it's not how your ears and brain hear it. Clipping and the dynamic compression that it produces can be very hearable and annoying, or it can be hearable and somewhat pleasant sounding, or it can completely unhearable. It depends on a number of factors.

Even with the newer class D amps, high quality-high wattage amplifiers are still expensive. In allocating money in a system I'm not sure it's wise to spend based upon what happens 1% of the time. I'm repeating myself, but a well designed 50-100 watt amplifier should suffice for the vast majority of circumstances.

As for playing the numbers game, you would also have to factor in the effect of heating of the voice coil. As you increase the current flowing in the voice coil, it heats up and resistance increases so that each additional increment of power delivers less and less increase in acoustic output (this is a major source of compression). Also, mechanically, as the drivers are pushed towards the limits of their excursion, there is an increase in the mechanical resistance which further increases compression. Hence, much more power is really needed that those simple formula suggest to get to a particular SPL level.

That said, for the most part, I agree with those who believe that the recommendations on power greatly exaggerate how much is needed. Give me quality over quantity any day.

I appreciate the feedback. I have a 100 wpc ss amplifier powering speakers with 91 db sensitivity and the woofer having it's own class D amplifier. I was demoing a 150 wpc amp of the same brand and preferred the sound of the lower powered amp, even though it's listed peak amperage was lower. Growing up, we thoroughly enjoyed music powered by a Sansui receiver at 30 wpc through 16 gauge speaker wire from Radio Shack.

The music flows just fine with my 60 to 80 watts or so tube amp…150 in the mosfet sub…dynamic all day (my speakers are maybe 89 db efficient although rated as higher). A note about clean dynamic power…I have super clean mui powerful amps used for live sound work, and if you ran one into virtually ANY home stereo speaker (love to demonstrate this with Magicos or something…owned by somebody else of course) that supposedly can handle some power, put a mic on a kick drum through a clean mixer and gave it some uncompressed beans (even flat with no bass boost with the amp on maybe 20%), you'd be lucky to hear a quick "splort" before the speaker self destructed. I'm not sure what my point is…but that's reality.

^It seems as though many audiophiles find reality pointless.:-)