When I bought my Supercharged Songtowers I only had a mid-level Denon receiver (x4100w) that had powered my tiny Energy Veritas Minis just fine. As a stop-gap solution, I thought it did an ok job with my SCST (admittedly I had little reference with which to compare) until I could upgrade, but when I bought my integrated (Hegel H90) I realised that when people say a quality "entry-level" integrated will smoke a mid-level receiver, they aren't lying.
Despite being only 60W into 8 ohms (probably around 100W into the 4-ohm SCST), it blows my supposedly decent receiver out of the water. I like as simple a setup as possible (no separates for me), and I don't listen very loud (walls between neighbors in Madrid could easily be mistaken for rice paper), so the H90 is perfect for me. It's small, sounds great and has all the connectivity I need.
- Eamon