I felt the same way until I started commuting.
It looks like I'm headed in that direction, so a car audio upgrade may be in order......have to see how it goes
A lot of folks on here say to upgrade speakers first, and rightfully so. However, no matter now nice of speakers you have an amp with a crappy power supply will not do them any justice. I am all for bigger, better amplifier. In Yammy, look to the Aventage series, I wouldn't go below that, and for 599, not too bad.
True, but in order to drive great speakers you wouldn't be using the amp in a receiver anyways and to drive most mid-range, mid-price speakers the amp in any (keyword)
decent receiver will be adequate (you could still gain a lot or a little something form an external amp in most cases). That being said, most times when people recommend receivers they take into account the speakers that a person is trying to drive with them and recommend accordingly (to externally amp or not).
Now any receiver's amp section is going to be woefully underpowered on any but flagship models on any receiver if you try to drive 5 or 7 channels with it. I've heard good things about yamaha, but never have used one, and Marantz definitely comes closer to living up to its power specs than most, and have a higher overall build quality than other similarly priced receivers to boot.
I guess my only point is that, buying a quality receiver will yield a quality amp section in most cases, but power shouldn't necessarily be the deciding factor when purchasing a receiver because external amps can be added rather cheaply if one decides that he or she needs one (so long as they bought a receiver with pre-outs).
Otherwise we're in agreement, Scotty we need more power!!!