More power for better sound at low volumes?

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.

Do you have any local friend or audio buddy who has a good pair of high efficiency speakers and an SET amp?
go for a visit, bring a bottle of good red wine though . . .LOL!
you will not find better sound at low volume with high power amps, they are not the answer my friend sorry to say, if they were i would have a one system at home and would be perfectly happy with it (naahhhhh . ..)
I have 4 systems @ home, the one I use for my intimate sessions is the one I described before (WHT speakers with triode strapped PP dual mono design 5751/6SN7 & KT88 now using NOS 6550 circa 1964), then I have some amazingly beefy amplifiers y Threshold, Aragon (Poor man's Krell D'Agostino design), Classée, some very limited hand made in Europe monoblocks that look and sound beautiful, some others by Sunfire (Bob Carver's child), Crown, and a hybrid integrated by DK Designs (150 WPC on 8 Ohm, 300 on 4Ohm)
all of them driving lower efficiency speakers such as 86 dB/W/m at 4 or 6 ohm, others @89db etc. they all sound better with a good solid state amp,now . . don't ask them to play great at low volume they will play alright but the music you want to hear @ 3 AM . .. if you know what I mean . .
I think we've all been at a late listening session looking for the holy grail of music.
you will look for the ideal all your life, the ideal is that you're happy with what you have until you find that ideal holy grail of system. which my friend is a life long search.
Agree?

Good luck;

take care;

Gonzalo