power

If your speakers compress at all within normal listening levels (i.e. other than the ear damage zone) you have crappy speakers and/or a crappy amp. Also the thing with amps sounding good is the overall design which should produce a great sounding "first watt" and the following watts are simply gravy. The speaker impedance and efficiency will pretty much tell you most of what you need to know about matching an amp to speakers, but it's gotta sound good to YOU. I've designed (and mixed with) systems for live sound using multi thousand watt amps and speaker systems that in terms of efficiency and power handling make home audio gear look weak and silly, but in my active listening home rig I use a 12 watt per side single ended Class A amp with reasonably efficient mains and a couple of powered subs…it will play louder than I need it to and sound sublime with any either calm or dynamic music I put through it because it's supposed to.

@wolf_garcia

Soundstage readily admits that many speakers deviate from linearity at 90 dB and most will deviate significantly at 95 dB. Few if any audiophile speakers that Soundstage have tested can handle 100 dB.

Take a $5000 audiophile speaker like the Monitor Audio PL100

Examine Chart 4 - Linearity at the following link

http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/speakers/monitor_audio_pl100/

Is this a crap speaker or simply a very common issue with audiophile speakers? 4dB of compression (non-linearity) at 95 dB shown on the chart for BOTH the woofer AND the tweeter response!

OMG and Soundstage says it is common and they have tested thousands of speakers.

Quote "Many speakers show slight deviations at 90dB. Most speakers start to show serious deviations at 95dB. Very few speakers can be tested at 100dB without damage. "

If most speakers can’t even cope with the dynamic range needed to represent realistic sound levels of real instruments and audiophiles are not even aware of this issue then "Houston, we have a problem."

.....perhaps people get so used to distortion from compression as a lot of pop and rock is compressed to begin with.....

I welcome comments but I don’t regard a speaker as "high fidelity" if it can’t accurately represent real music...so big power amps will only go so far unless the speaker is a very rare bird indeed.

Roger Sanders who designs and sold  electrostatics once explained to me that a speaker that is 4ohm say with a rating of 94db (Decwares I used to have)  are not really 94db efficient  because of the 4 ohm rating.     I Don't recall what his current company is now.   What had got my attention though is he was pretty determined in explaining how that works and unfortunately I can't  recall how to explain that.  It did have me feeling a bit though that speaker manufacturers are mis representing .   I do remember that he said for the db rating to be as stated  it has to be  for example -- 96db @ 8ohm 1 watt/1 meter.      

Meant to add that the rating would be a lot less..  below 90db in the case of my Decwares.  I think he said more like 86db something like that.   I had meant at some point to ask Steve at Decware about it but I have since moved up the chain to Harbeths and so glad I did.    Something else that seems to be pivotal is a lot of manufactures are using polypropylene for cone material  and from what I gather that is not what you want in the ongoing pursuit of better sound.    The only good thing about poly cone is very cheap to make ..  I found this out as well when I prices the drivers for the Decwares  I had and they were like 36 bucks apiece.   

Soundstage readily admits that many speakers deviate from linearity at 90 dB and most will deviate significantly at 95 dB. Few if any audiophile speakers that Soundstage have tested can handle 100 dB.

Assuming the opportunity presents itself, I look forward to whatever measurements Soundstage could or would provide for Golden Ear Triton Reference. I've played a significant amount of music through them where the SPL at the PLP was 101db (so states my less than professional Dawson DSM101N multi-meter). And having been to many concerts in my day, trust me, its loud. The Reference are *easily* producing this decibel level while sounding great. 

And while I've never played them (yet) over 101db, I'm rather confident they can handle 120db - consistent with manufacturer rating - and still sound great. 

And to stay on thread topic, usually I need just one or two watts to get the T Refs singing, albeit I have a 220wpc amp.