Any ideas on these power issues?

About all I want to add here is this: more power is better when it comes to amps.

As unintuitive as it might sound, the more powerful your amplifiers, the quieter you can play your music and still have it sound good. It's a function of "head room" -- amplifiers that aren't working hard can deliver better sound.

Given lots of power (my system can pump out close to 1000 watts, although I have never done so) then the only limiting factor to how much volume you can produce is how much abuse your speakers can take before they melt down.

Another counter-intuitive concept: the closer to maximum gain you run your amplifiers, they more efficiently they run, in terms of the ratio of power out to power consumed. In my case, I am willing to sacrifice a few hundred watts of my car's electrical production on the altar of sound quality.

tanstaafl.