125 watt or 80 watt?

Someone help me out....i am in the midst of a deal and dont want to make the wrong uninformed choice. I have done research but need some answers.

I'm not going to be of much help but I do own a pair of Snell E's, they are great speakers for the money, hope you hold on to them.. they can benefit from the best amps but are really easy speakers to drive and live with.. I think you can do better than Carver but the 80 watter should be enough. For example, Rega Mira3 or music fidelity or Creek destiny all of which pop up here regularly I think might sound better. I am very happy with the two Rega Mira's I use, only 60 watts per side but very sweet, open, clean, transparent, just not good for finicky power hungry inefficient monitors (I've got a few of those) but should work wonders with Snell E.

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.

Remember i am trying to keep this whole "upgrade" below a reasonable price. 350-400 is about all i can spend on an amp, and i would like it to be a 3-5 channel one at that. I am into the home theatre aspect of this and music dts dvds also. Please, any input that anyone has is awesome.