Hi Jerry!
-> When I played music on the road I used two 435 watts RMS amps to
-> power everything.
-> The neat thing about a high power amp is that it usually takes LESS
-> watts to get the same sound. A small amp has to strougle while a big
-> amp just coasts along.
I see so many shows where the power amps are working so hard ALL of the
time... like a show I was at this last weekend.. every amp in the racks
was in the "red" most of the night on the LED VU meters on this
tri-amped with subs sound system.
Having efficiency in the speakers and having ample power amp
reserves for peak tranisients are important to keep the sound from
rapidly distorting into noise.
 I used to run a Phase Linear 700 on a pair of Altec A-7-500s once for a
medium sized theatre sound system once.. The highest the meters on the
amp ever say was 60% and that was only briefly when a soprano got
too near a mic during an opera once on a high note (doing live sound for
operas is very strange, the high notes don't need micing hardly
ever). Most everything else is always in need of some kind of help.
Using a 350watt per channel amp on a speaker system that was rated at
30-35 watts would be considered overkill by many, but it sure did
RESPOND very well. Careful control over it was required to keep from
blowing it up though! The sound system was amazingly transparent to the
audience, to the point that they didn't "hear" it at all much of the
time.
 Bonnie *:>
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