...you didn't really answer his question

Sorry... I thought the answer was implicit in my reply. The reason people put ridiculous amounts of power in their car is to (a) impress people, and (b) win SPL contests.

I can discern no reason for more than 300 watts of power in a car from the point of view of sound quality. Myself, I only run 150 watts. The bigger sound quality systems are better than mine in that the transients are quicker, cleaner: bass drum beats go pomp pomp pomp instead of poom poom poom (how's that for technical talk!) but the differences are so slight that you have to really be listening for them.

Stereos that achieve listenable volumes with the gain controls set at 15% of maximum will sound better than stereos that (like mine) are working at about 80% to get the same volume levels. IMHO, once you're past 300 watts in a car stereo you have passed the point of diminishing returns, unless your goal is to be able to pump out more than 140 decibels in an SPL competition..

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"