Quote:

What's interesting to me is that there is only a 35wpc difference between the yamaha receiver amp and the Emotiva amp. A friend of mine told me that the biggest difference (even at lower volumes) was a greater presence of lows / bass because of the stronger amps. He said that this new amp was not as strained as the Yammie amp so it had more headroom to push the lows. I'm sure I'm losing something in the interpretation but when he told me it made sense. There is a stronger presense of lows with this new amp which may be a key reason for everything else. The sound seems to have more punch than before (not a good description). Again, all I know is that I would much rather listen to the Emotiva combo than the Yamaha receiver.



There isn't just a 35W/channel difference. The Emotiva, as I said before, is rated a clean 225W/channel into 4 Ohms. The Yammi is rated 90W/channel into 8 Ohms. That is a tremendous difference IF you like listening "loud".

And I know what you mean by "punch". But darn it all, if you are listening at a half watt per channel, all that gobbledegook that your friend talked about should not matter. I'd love to know what accounts for the difference that you are hearing (which by the way I don't dispute).