125 watt or 80 watt?

Athens14,

You really can't predict the sound quality of amps by the wattage only. I haven't had any experience with Carver amps since the late 90's when a Carver TFM45 (rated at 375 w/ch) went non-linear and blew the ribbon tweeters out of a brand new pair of Apogee Stages. Maybe their newer stuff is better - don't know.

Marantz has a reputation for good sound quality and good reliability. Your Marantz AVR is rated at 105w/channel. Your Snell E3s are known to be very efficient so you should not need more power than that for your medium-sized room. Focus on quality not quantity (watts) when you decide to trade up to more hi-end equipment.

If you sell your Marantz AVR and buy a Carver (or any) amplifier, what are you going to use as a preamp/processor?

My advice is to keep the Marantz, save your pennies, do more research on Audiogon and Audioasylum (and other) forums, go to several reputable audio salons and listen to a lot of different equipment, and then buy something that you know more about. Don't get in a hurry!

well i was planning to upgrade to hd audio using a pioneer vsx 819 as a pre amp. I wanted to do this so i can get all the new hd audio while having a seperate amp to power everything. I have a snell hcc-500 for a center and little sony bookshelfs for the rears. I read up on the carver and it seems to be a good buy for the price, 350$ for 5 channel amp. I am really doing this so i can get the hd audio and still have a great power source in the carver since the pioneer is not really that good for sound, just hd audio. Any other adnice would be awesome. Thanks for the replies.

You would be better off with a good used Onkyo 805:

http://electronics.shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38.l1313&_nkw=onkyo+805&_sacat=293

I don't think wattage differences here should be an issue either way. Other factorss seem much more important. Like features.