More power for better sound at low volumes?

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.

06-21-12: Unsound
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?

Hi Unsound,

No, I don't see it that way. Higher amplifier power will loosely correlate with higher amplifier gain, since amplifiers tend to be designed such they they will be driven to their maximum power capability, whatever that may be, when their input voltage is in the same general area (commonly, although of course not always, in the general area of 1 to 1.5 volts, for unbalanced inputs).

So as I indicated, any noise that is generated or introduced downstream of the volume control will, more often than not, be amplified by a greater amount if the amplifier is higher powered. (Noise originating upstream of the volume control will normally be unaffected by that gain difference, because the volume control setting will be turned up or down to compensate for the gain difference, affecting the signal and noise that originates upstream equally).

Best regards,
-- Al

IMO clarity/resolution is the solution to better sound at any volume. It starts with your soure and then the preamp. All that gets passed through to your amp which basically just magnifies the signal. Most preamps have to use a little juice to get them sounding good basically becasue of the caps in the signal path. Use a direct heated triode preamp that is transformer coupled and you won't have that issue. If you are using a CD Player how old is the laser? That can have a significant affect on clarity/resolution.

Happy Listening.

Mapman,
You raise an excellent point with nearfield listening. I often use to pull my chair up to within 3 ft of the speakers ( Martin Logan CLS modded at the time ) and listen nearfield. I believe it removes the room effects and you get a much larger soundstage behind the speakers and can hear into it.
Reminds me of a one on one I had many years ago with Dave Wilson of Wilson Audio. He positioned me in a nearfield position, 3ft from each speaker and dead centre, and proceeded to run through many of his recordings to demonstrate his recording and microphone techniques. In this nearfield position all was revealed.

Dover, yes i know what you mean.