I have no doubt that when I am listening to music with a measly half watt per channel, that my amplifier is called upon to deliver as much as 40 Watts provided that I am not listening to compressed material. More likely, my amp never has to deliver more than 4 Watts because, unfortunately, most material out there is compressed.
I know for a fact that up to 40W, my cheap Denon is completely clean. And I know that it doesn't start clipping until well beyond its rated 90W per channel into 8 Ohms. And you guys also know this because I have been so kind as to conduct the testing and post the data right
here on these boards. You also know that my wife and two kids couldn't tell the difference between my wife's boombox and my Denon when connected to M80s and played well within their specs as shown in my May 18th post right
here.
Obviously when listeners hear differences between their integrated receiver playing at a half watt and their more "esoteric" separates playing at the same level, we can't attribute the sonic differences to power only. It simply does not make sense from my experience. But we can't attribute them to other specifications such as distortion, channel separation, etc because the esoteric gear is not that much different than integrated gear (if there is any difference at all).
Now for those that listen at levels of 10 Watts per channel, don't buy a Denon, or an HK or a Yammi. Don't buy an Emotiva, Odyssey or even a Krell. You need to open your wallets and satisfy your thirst for decibels by purchasing the A1400. It's really as simple as that.
So it seems we have to keep searching for the technical reasons that lead to sonic differences at low power levels.
