More power for better sound at low volumes?

I concur with the 1st post, better resolution has to be an advantage at low listening levels. Lower noise floor in components is one way to improve resolution.
I do note in my travels that in the US there is a tendency to overdampen rooms, and suspect that if a listening room is overdamped, details get lost at lower listening levels.

Al, Perhaps erroneously, I would have assumed that "all else being equal" extra power would have provided the muscle to reject external noise from seeping in?

"I do note in my travels that in the US there is a tendency to overdampen rooms, and suspect that if a listening room is overdamped, details get lost at lower listening levels."

I would agree.

My wife bought me a very nice plush recliner for my listening room for Father's Day. I think I am noticing this effect to some extent now as a result of the additional damping in the room due to the added presence of the recliner when listening in it. On the sofa about 5 feet closer to the speakers, no problem still.

In my mind the 'overdamping' issue just serves to demonstrate that our systems (most anyway) are best served by being heard in rooms which add information (from reflections) which are not in the source. No one listens to music in an anechoic chamber but it might be interesting to hear in other than a nearfield set up what all of the subtle detail sounds like without interference from all of the reflections which would mask them, especially the higher frequencies. Just a thought.........

Maybe we like all of the reflections because our basic systems are just not up to the task and they mask a lot of crap?

"No one listens to music in an anechoic chamber but it might be interesting to hear in other than a nearfield set up what all of the subtle detail sounds like without interference from all of the reflections which would mask them, especially the higher frequencies. Just a thought........."

One word: "Headphones".

The down side of course is that most of the spatial cues in the (stereo)recording involving acoustic instruments will not be reproduced in three dimensions correctly with headphones so that is a form of distortion that is inherent with headphones that can mask detail in a different way. For mono recordings, headphones may be golden in terms of detail delivery.

THe fact is that the sound of most music is a 3 (actually 4 including time) dimensional phenomenon that requires three dimensions and room acoustics to reproduce accurately without distortion.

The best panacea I know of for listening to detail is nearfield listening with a pair of good omni-directional speakers set up well for that application.