More power for better sound at low volumes?

"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.

Not really Mapman, with earphones you loose the open soundstage effect of a well set up system which I value as I know you do as well. Although not stated I recognize that there are speaker designs which depend on reflections for their imaging characteristics (need I tell you? :-)Other than that I find the headphones (mine anyway) very rewarding. I bought 2 sets (headphones and tubed amps) for my main system and, where they really shine, in the TV system where soundstaging is not a big deal.

Newbee, you are right of course.

Check my last post again. I had edited and expanded it to cover that exact caveat.

When you operate a high power amplifier at low power levels quite often you have higher levels of distortion. This is because most high power amplifiers are push-pull and with rare exception, most push pull amps (tube or solid state) will have their lowest distortion at some point well above zero watts and then the distortion increases again as power continues to decrease.

At low power in particular, it really is that 'first watt' that makes the difference! Due to the ear's masking principle, if higher distortion is present, detail will be obscured IOW such an amp will be less detailed at lower volume levels. Also as others have pointed out the noise floor will be higher too.

Amps that do not exhibit this dip in distortion, IOW amps that have a linear decrease in distortion as power goes down to zero, will have unmeasurable distortion as power levels fall below 1 watt. They fall into two categories: either SET, or fully-differential with little or no negative feedback.

I can go into the why of this if anyone wants but it gets technical.

Unsound, more power in the amp will not reject external noise. The way to do that is to have a fully differential balanced circuit (whether tube or solid state).

Listening to most really good stereo recordings on headphones is in fact the stereo equivalent of watching a 3-D encoded movie without the required glasses. Room acoustics are the equivalent of the 3-D glasses for a stereo recording. And of course no two rooms share exactly the same acoustics, including studio or hall recorded in and listening room at home, so the reproduction will most likely always be different to some extent and not exact no matter how "good" the stereo system is.