Is there any truth to this question?

"There are also those that think that deep, tight bass is the be-all-and-end-all of musical reproduction and those people, too, might find anything less than 200 watts to be inadequate. The rest of the crowd really don't need that much power."

Deep tight bass is very important to me but not the be-all-end-all. That's just one piece of the puzzle. But to get that one right, yes in many cases beefy amplification is exactly what is needed to get that right, but I find the rest need not suffer as a result and in fact can also still be top notch. It all depends....

The RM-10 is one of the best value amplifiers in production. The 35 watts was enough for the designer to use not only with Vandersteen's, but his Quad 57's and his own brand of ESL speakers. It is quite a versatile amp as it can be "light" loaded to reduce distortion and run the circuit more efficiently with less stress on the tubes, although there will be a reduction in power. The reduced power in a small room with speakers that have a smooth impedance curve this should not be an issue IMO. Try the 4 ohm taps or run the speaker leads from the 4 and 8 ohm taps which in parallel give you two ohms and see how the amp sounds. You might be surprised.

I think the power would drop to 27 watts on the 4 ohm tap driving 8 ohms (roughy) - in fact that is the way I use them with the Merlins - light loaded. Lower distortion, less stress on tubes, and more peak power for transients (not sure why, but Roger says it is so).

02-13-12: Mapman
If an amp is clipping, there is a good chance the sound quality is negatively affected well before any any clearly audible distortion is noticed. Better to have an amp that goes loud effortlessly to provide headroom before any clipping comes into play. One might be surprisec what is needed to do this for less efficient speakers. The difference can be subtle but very significant. With the exception of very efficient switching Class D amps, some weight and size is usually required.

Completely agree Mapman.

I am of the opinion that most audiophiles underestimate the amount of power they need.

30 watts of power might be adequate to reproduce music at average levels for a typical speaker /room, but musical peaks can require 10x average power.

Most audiophiles simply don't recognize when their amps are clipping. This is because the clipping usually only occurs on musical peaks where it is very transient, and does not occur at the average power level. Transient clipping is not recognized as clipping by most listeners because the average levels are relatively much longer than the peaks. Since the average levels aren't obviously distorted, the listeners think the amp is performing within its design parameters -- even when it is not...

Kiwi,

I suspected this was the case but it was only once I pulled out all stops and went with the 500w/ch Class D BelCanto Ref1000m monoblocks that I became convinced.

I've had several amps in my rig prior with the relatively hard to drive OHMs and Dynaudios up to 200w/ch or so. The BCs are the first to always play effortlessly at any reasonable volume with no signs of running out of gas. Effortlessly means transients are clean and crisp even as the volume goes up.

I did have a 360w/ch Carver amp originally that went plenty loud enough, but that amp had Carver's tube transfer function technology and did not have the guts to drive the current hungry OHMs or Dyns as well at any volume.