I have a stereo receiver at home with surround sound capabilties. The
only problem is that it does not have enough power for all of my five
speakers that are hooked up to it. I need to find someone (a website)
that sells additional external power (not alot of power, say 50 watts)
that I can attach to my receiver. I'm looking to spend $50-75.

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Clarification of Question by satchinacious-ga on 03 Mar 2005 21:45 PST

I have a stereo receiver at home with surround sound capabilties. The
only problem is that it does not have enough power for all of my five
speakers that are hooked up to it. I need to find someone (a website)
that sells additional external power (not alot of power, say 50 watts)
that I can attach to my receiver. I'm looking to spend $50-75.
 The Receiver is a Denon AVR-1400

What is the make and model of your current receiver?

That information will help the researchers to know whether it has
pre-amp outputs in which an amplifier could be attached.  Pre-amp
outputs look the same as the red and white inputs that come from other
devices into the receiver, but they will have different wording or a
picture to indicate output instead of input.

If the receiver does not have pre-amp outputs, then the type of
amplifier will be different because it will need to have the
capability of amplifying an already high powered signal.

Thr receiver is a Denon AVR-1400

I'm not a researcher but I can offer some assistance.

You're in luck. That is a nice receiver and according to the following
spec sheet it does have pre-amp outputs.
http://www.cinenow.com/pdf/denon_avr1400-1420g_bro1_us.pdf

Honestly I'm surprised that 80W RMS per channel is not enough for your
speakers, but guess you must be using some pretty large speakers in
the front. Or is it the sub woofer that is the cause of your concern?

I am far from a audio expert, so I can't give you a specific make or
model of an amplifier that you should get but I'll make some
recommendations to you.

The first (and most important) piece of advice is do NOT skimp on your
amplifier.  You have a nice receiver and I would hate for you to have
to listen to terrible or distorted sounds because your amp is sub-par.
 I have made that mistake in the past and I would hate to see you do
the same.

You are better off buying a used high quality amp than a new lower
quality amp.  A good amp should last several years (20+) depending on
how often it is used. In fact I found a reference to some amps that
were listed as having an expected life of 40,000 hours.  That's over
50 years if used 2 hours a day every day.

Beware of new amps that advertise significantly higher power ratings
than is normal for that price range.  Typically these amps are of much
lower quality and the power rating is the maximum output compared to
the RMS value (which is the number all the nicer audio companies use).

You probably only need to get a 2 channel amplifier since 80W each is
probably plenty for the center, and surround speakers (rear left and
right).  Plus once you put the front speakers on their own amp you'll
get a lot better performance out of the other speakers since your
receiver won't have to work as hard.

Also, due to the fact that amplifiers take a pre-amp signal and
amplify it, you won't be adding the power of your amp to the existing
80W that your receiver puts out.  You'll want to get an amp that is
100W or more per channel (not 50W as you stated).

In looking around on eBay I see a couple used 200W x 2 channel amps
for around $150-200.  I know that's a little more than you want to
spend, but it's going to be tough to find a good sounding amplifier
for less than $1 to $2 per watt and it sounds like you definitely need
at least 100 watts.

If you want to list the make and model of each of the speakers (front
pair, rear pair, center, and sub) you are using I'd be able to give
you a little better idea of what size (in watts) amp to look for.