ATC and Loki

OP here.
JON, your understanding of this matches my understanding of this, and I appreciate your efforts to keep comments impersonal. By that, I don’t mean to vilify anyone who is taking a different approach. I’m just commenting on what I appreciate.
I am in no way trying to comment on any objective reality in relationship to acoustics or speakers or ears or anything along those lines. I have no expertise with things like that. I’m working on the basis of my own ears and my own speakers in my own room and making surmises about what’s going to work best for me, hoping that others have been down this road and can share things that I will find helpful.I understand that there are various elements in this topic that are debatable and that debate is often fun or Educational, so I don’t mind if anyone wishes to continue this thread along these lines because that has value for them, if not for me.

You know, some systems sound fantastic at all volumes. My current system does sound very good at low volumes. But I have never gotten a handle on what the parameters are of good sound at low volumes… is it mostly the speakers… or what. But over the years I have heard some professional reviewers discuss it. Might do some Google searching and see if you can find useful info.

Outside of Fletcher Munson, there is no reason a system should so different within its power bandwidth. I think a lot of the impressions one gets of a system sounding different with level is really related to distortion, power compression or mismatched driver efficiencies. The bass falling off at lower level is obviously Fletcher Munson ear behavior, and inexperienced listeners do not think about this effect when testing systems. Its exactly how a demos can used to make a listener think there is "more bass" on one vs the other by having levels ever so slightly different (say a 1/2dB or so) that you don’t notice the overall level difference, you notice the more bass and to a lesser extent, more highs.

From working with engineers for 30+ years, the good ones, I can tell you from observation and personal experience "critical listening" is a very complex skill that is difficult to master.  Always remember one simple fact: the first sound of any comparison is the reference.

Yes, I think this is more about ears than equipment per se. Mine are not nearly as fine-tuned as most of the people here. By the way, I’ve been playing with my new toy and it’s fun. Where I will end up in terms of settings or usage is still up in the air.

I have definitely noticed most systems have a unique sweet spot in volume, typically not low volume. This isn’t psychological. Some do sound great at low volumes. I am confident that the differences among systems exist. However, I have been fortunate that I have lived in places where I could play at any volume I want… so I never did a systematic investigation. I bet a lot of folks from Europe and Japan have.