In reply to:
"but that if you were listening to several well-designed amps regardless of price with no clue of which was which, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
I think for a lot of people this is true, but not
all people. As a general statement you are probably correct. One of my friends buys the more expensive models simply because they look nice and sometimes because "they have the cool blue LEDs". He can hardly tell the difference between a lot of speakers, but he does know aesthetics.
I once had an Adcom GFA-535II stereo amp (55 W/channel) and eventually replaced it with one of Yamaha's top of the line Prologic receivers (that is, it was the top of the line model when it came out - 90W/channel).
Both were expensive, both had great numbers on paper but with the same speakers, components, cables, etc. the Yamaha sounded dull compared to the Adcom. I eventually sold the Yamaha to pick up a Hamon Kardon which sounded better. I had both the Adcom and Yamaha for about three years each so I became very familiar with their sound.
In this case, it supports Alan's article. Due to the space being dedicated to the components rather than the components being dedicated to the space, the separate amp outperformed the receiver. That being said, receivers have come a long way since then.
Sound quality issues aside, the OP, I believe was simply looking for "more sound". In his case, going to a QSC amp and looking for something in the 1200+ watt range would make a difference, although I doubt he "needs" it. For my needs at the time, the 55W/channel was plenty and I never listened to it maxed out. Junping to 90W/channel
made no difference. The speakers I used were Mirage's M3-si which were very inefficient at 83dB@2.83V/1m.
At 130W/channel, unless the original user has a HUGE space, that should be plenty of power for most situations.
