Even in my younger days it was never about how loud i could play something in the late 70 early 80ies i was running a Phase linear 400 amp 200 watt a side amp into a set of kenwood 900 15" woofer ect speakers lots of power but it was 99.9% listening to music cranking the volume never equated to better with me
at that time it was savoy brown, who rolling stones , Lynerd skynerd ect
ED
Well Ed, I think age has a lot to do with it sometimes. In my case back in my 20/30's, I use to blast out cones in my speakers quite often, especially in my car. It was all rock,,, hard rock for me, nothing else and it had to be LOUD!!! 
My musical tastes started to vary mid way thru my 40's and now in my 50's, it's all about jazz and just about everything else, except old country. As I gradually drifted away from rock tho, the volumes naturally lowered. Today, even when I play some gold ole' hard rock at high volumes, I can't even fathom coming close to the volume levels of 30 years ago.
If Kingdeezie wants more power, I say more power to him. 
Cheers,
Robin
But you must ask your self how many people listen " at a realistic level." I can say that i do not normally play my system at the same volume as a live concert nor want to. Why i do think in stereo, like cars, there there is no substitute for horsepower, some level of compromise must be addressed. In this i think to get to an amp that will provide the power for the desired listening level stated will be a much more expensive proposition and when such an amp is acquired the speakers will then become the bottle neck in the system.
ED
Interesting quote from that Stereophile review:
The transient peaks in live music can reach high sound pressure levels. For example, John Atkinson, sitting in a mid-hall seat in London's Royal Festival Hall, measured timpani thwacks at +106dB peak back in the early 1980s; reproducing those peaks without clipping and thus generating "slam factor" is what can make the difference between a system sounding "blah" or "wow," between "canned" or "real."
So if you're interested in reproducing musical realism at home, how much power do you really need? More than you might think, says Musical Fidelity's Antony Michaelson, who offers his reasoning in a white paper. Michaelson's bottom line is that with loudspeakers having normal sensitivity, you are going to need at least 500W to reproduce music's transient peaks in your listening room at a realistic level.
