yes really. it's called head room. , you think all people will use it as headroom?(i like headroom too. ) Instead of cranking it up to the max, with sometimes not properly set gains. Not really smart to post that kind of stuff on a forum, where a lot of beginner's read up to gain knowledge and then they read that and think they need a bigger amp.(and burn woofers, and then ask what happened.) OP doesn't have to take my advice. It's just my 2 cents. If I had a choice of running a SSD with a 500 watt amp or 1000 watt amp I would choose the 1000 watt amp and set the gain lower to reduce strain on the amp. you guys are both right, it's just a personal preference.....if you have experience with setting proper gains and etc...then go for it.....but then again we don't want people coming on here reading that they can take a certain number of watts because then people will start to improperly tune there amps and bam we got a whole lot of fried subs....