More power for better sound at low volumes?

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.

Wow! You folks are great; i didn't know I'd unleash such a flurry of excellent commentary. I'm trying to sort this all out now!

Hi Rustler, I read some of the answers, some well grounded some out there .. . that's us audiophiles for you.I read somebody even recommending a preamp .. go figure
Listenning to low levels and wanting to listen and hear good music deals more with the speaker/room interaction than your choice of amplifiers.
my question is with a speaker efficiency of 91 dB you shoudl need any more than 100 WRMS per channel.
in reality you will never use more than 25 or 30 watt off of that. your ears will not take it.
The secret (not really) to hear good music at lower levels is simple as the efficiency of the speaker, the higher the efficiency the beter it sounds at low volumes.
now let's take that one step back for a minute.
not all speakers are created equal or voice the same (Thank God for that) . . .
so for (what i call) intimate listening sessions @ low volumes, you only need a good source, a good preamp and a very good tube amplifier or if solid state of the likes of the ones made by Nelson Pass's First Watt,
then a horn loaded or a scoop loaded or .. . you get it, high efficiency speaker and a well balanced room then you will be in heaven.
Some speakers sound pretty bad at low volumes I heard throughj the years the Sequel, the Requests and other fine Martin Logans and they all sounded great to me but also required to be properly excited with power and excite the room in a very special way and with good power like what you are describing.

it seems teh system you describe is wonderful and sounds very good i'm sure @ higher levels but if your tastes lean more toward "intimate listening" then you need something a little different perhaps.
I drive my WHT (Wide Horn Technologies)PR-1 Falcons (96 db/W/m @10 ohm) with a Heavily modified Audible Illusions preamp and a triode amp with some 28 WPC but i'm sure i never use any more than 8 or 9 watts i'm sure, i could be using an SET amp and sound even better but .. this is what I have right now.

You need to see what works for you and go get it.
Start by not buying any more or different gear, just treat the room differently ( evidently whatever room treatment you have is not working for you) and then go from there.
That's my 2 cents .

Enjoy the music

G.