Who needs this much power? Bassists do, especially when their bandmates are loud and their bass is not run through the PA system. The extra headroom won't hurt your speakers as long as a reasonable degree of caution is used. The headroom could certainly hurt your ears (!), but that's what earplugs are for.

For typical gigs I run my World 2.1 stereo into a pair of 8-ohm SWR Goliath Junior III 2x10 cabinets. This provides 300W to 450W per cabinet depending on what specs are used (either FTC rating or 1% THD @1kHz, respectively).

Note that this amp is actually two separate mono amps, which adds to flexibility/modularity: for rehearsal/small gigs I use just one channel into one speaker cabinet: the channel 2 side is powered off. For large or outdoor gigs I run bridge mode into a Goliath Sr. III 6x10. The 2100 watts is more headroom than I need (note that it doubles the power rating of the SWR 6x10) but my previous amplifier was underpowered and I swore I'd never run out of headroom again.

Tone: not applicable. What you put in is what you get out, which is exactly what I wanted. I push my Stewart with an old red-knob Alembic F2B preamp, and the tube-y goodness shines right through without being squashed or colored. If I want more grit or warmth, I cascade the channels of the F2B or use a SansAmp BassDriver DI. Any of you with other high end preamps (Aguilar, Demeter, etc) will also love how your tone is faithfully reproduced at any volume your speaker cabinet(s) can handle.

Misc: the amp has a fan which is on all the time, but if you can hear it while playing then you don't need the Stewart, you need to go buy a little practice combo. Seriously, the fan is fairly quiet.

Scoring notes: slight demerit for construction, but no 17 pound amp will be as bulletproof as, say, a 35 pound Crown. But the World 2.1 is still a very sturdy amp. Slight demerit for value because it's expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for.

Construction	95%
Clarity	100%
Volume	100%
Value	95%
Overall	98%