Is there any truth to this question?

And Harbeth makes total sense given the amp and setup - sweet indeed.

All this talk about power, when there is so much more to great sound. Power/headroom is nice for the .001% of the time that the music hits a demanding peak. If one has to make sacrifices in other areas of performance for such ability, is it really worth it?

I think a lot of people vastly overestimate the amount of power they really need because power is the one dimension of performance that can easily be measured and understood.

I like the sound of all of the Vandersteen speakers I've heard. At each price point, they represent great value--well rounded performance, no glaring problems or weaknesses, and a nice musical presentation. For my personal taste and priorities, if there is one area where I would most like an improvement in this line of speakers, it would be in terms of immediacy and "jump" (liveliness and microdynamics--the kind of thing high efficiency speakers tend to be better at delivering). I don't think this is something that is delivered by more power (I want to hear this at lower volumes than at high volume), and the more lively a system sounds, the more one tends to listen at a lower average volume. I have not heard Vandersteens with OTLs, but, I would certainly given them a try because nothing perks up the sound of dynamically polite speakers like OTLs. Atmasphere stated that the Vandersteens were easy to drive so I would expect that his OTL models would be a potential match.

"but, I would certainly given them a try because nothing perks up the sound of dynamically polite speakers like OTLs."

Do they ever!

It has more to do with the transients in digital recordings compared to most vinyl. PLaying a record is a physical process involving mass and inertia that inhibits the ability to deliver transients. The fact is historically most vinyl rigs/record players do not handle this very well, although many more modern, high tech and expensive rigs probably do better.

Often or typically the result is a natural and perhaps even pleasant filtering of transients that makes the signal easier for an amp to deliver. The more this occurs, the easier for the amp, often with pleasant sounding results nonetheless.

DIgital involves no physics of mass and inertia.

Another way to describe what you are talking about is raw bandwidth. If you have bandwidth, you also have risetime- the two are related. Most analog has more bandwidth (remember CD4 from the 1970s?) than most digital, in addition most amps have more bandwidth than either analog or digital.

So the transient theory can't explain your observations.

YEs, so bottom line, personally, for mainly lower volume near field listening in smaller quarters, I would be more inclined in general to go exclusively with speakers that are easy to drive and more phase coherent at close range due to proximity of drivers and I would give strong consideration to more moderate powered tube amplification to drive them.