integrated watts or amp watts


Most "Stereophile recommended" integrated amps only have a rating of about 50-70 watts (creek, exposure, croft, arcam). Others like the Anthem and NAD have more, but separates (amp+pre-amp) seem to have more watts. I was told that for a budget of $1500 for this, I'd get the best bang for the buck with integrated vs seperates. The question I have is 2 fold..
1) Does Stereophile only "recommend" these lower powered integrateds because they're the ones with phono stages (which I don't care about)?

2) To have a really dynamic accurate loud system do I need gobs of power assuming the speaker is in the avg. 8ohm range with avg. 91db efficiency (not an electrostat, etc)
How much money do I need to spend? Is a 70 watt integrated only good for a small bedroom system, and separates needed to rock towers and the whole house? Just curious.
128x128labguy

Showing 1 response by arnettpartners

Yeah, but loudness and size of the room aren't the only considerations. You need an amp with enough power to control the speakers. That may not be a lot with some of the modern speakers, but with class A/B SS, if the amp is not controlling the drivers, the drivers will send signal back to the amp resulting in harsh and ugly SQ. That's probably not an issue with tubes and class A I'm guessing.