Davekro,

I would agree with all the responses here--that you'd be unlikely to hear any audible differences at modest to fairly loud peaks--say, around 95 dB SPL at your listening seat. It is only when you get into much louder peaks (say 105 dB, which subjectively would sound "twice as loud" as peaks at 95 dB) that differences might be audible.

It would also depend on how critical a listener you are. Many of us of a certain age put up with ghastly distortions from phono cartridges playing highly modulated grooves towards the inner part of vinyl discs, yet it didn't ruin the musical enjoyment (admittedly, my knuckles would turn white if I were listening to a work for orchestra and chorus that had its biggest crescendo in the inner grooves. I'd be thinking, will my
Shure V15 Type V in a custom SME tonearm track these without audibly distorting?)

Plus the power handling of the loudspeaker itself would come into play. On very loud peaks, smaller speakers may start getting edgy sounding as the distortion approaches audibility. (Axiom speakers generally have excellent power handling) but lots of speakers don't like, or can't handle, peak levels very well, including all planar flat-panel designs--electrostatic and planar-magnetic.

I'd also point out that through a particular line of AV receivers, the power supply may NOT change as you step up the model range until the very top of the line. I don't know the exact engineering details of Denon's power supplies, and I won't speculate. In many cases, stepping up to a more elaborate model simply gets you more features, inputs and outputs, and greater versatility, but the basic power supply and internal amplifier modules remain the same.

Regards,

Alan

Alan Lofft,
Axiom Resident Expert (Retired)