Audio Systems: crazy recivers, home receivers, sensitive speaker

Question
Hi I have a Sherwood RX-4105 receiver (100@ 8 ohms) and I hooked up 2 6ohms speakers in series to the left and right side an it plays loud in my 15X13 room!!So why do so many companies out there make 500w and 1000 home receivers?

Answer
In audio systems a lot of reserve power is nice to have, especially when the music has lots of dynamic range.

And, there is a technical matter that may interest you. It is the non-linearity of power consumption.  Here is the situation.  A receiver may have any of hundreds of speakers connected to it. The acoustic sensitivity of typical loudspeakers may range from 85db to 95db.  That is a 10db range. Now, a 10db acoustic range requires a 10 times power change to accomplish such.  Therefore, a low sensitivity speaker compared to a more sensitive speaker may require 10 times the power to give the same loudness output.  In other words, one speaker that sounded good at 10w of power would require 100w to give the same sound level in the low sensitivity unit.

Hope this helps your understanding.

C