More power for better sound at low volumes?

Power alone has perhaps the least of anything to do with low volume sound quality. Almost everything else matters more. THere is lots of good info in threads scattered about here on A'gon already about what goes into getting good sound at lower volumes. Best to go through some of that first and then ask more questions here as needed.

A lot of vintage gear used to have loudness controls and other tone control features that due to how the human ear works were useful at low volumes sometimes but required manual interaction to activate/use.

Its possible that this could still be part of an amplifiers design, ie internalized auto equalization in essence for the purpose of optimizing sound at all volumes.

Sounds like at least a couple makers might do this but do not know for sure. Some might advertise as a feature or some might keep it under wraps so as not to offend audiophiles that object to equalization solutions but like good sound at all volumes.

IF done well, I think this could be a good thing/feature if any makers want to fess up?

Good points by the Wolf man.

Differences in sound at low volume may have some to do with the system, particularly the speakers, but yes a lot to do with you and how room acoustics work.

"sound is made of waves travelling through the dense air in your room, to the dense brain in your head"

My listening room and I both resemble that remark!

Also I realize now that a pressure controlled listening room might be the ultimate tweak, though more costly than fancy fuses. Anybody out there have one of those?

In all seriousness, I truly do think that my system sounds better on high pressure weather days than on low ones at all volumes. A scuba suit with acoustically transparent ears might also be required for the ultimate tweak to go along with the pressurized room!

Also in all seriousness, has anybody say in a mobile home ever a/b compared their system set up in the mountains at high altitude (lower air pressure) compared to down in the valley at lower altitudes/higher air pressure? I would expect some differences.

I would expect those Martin Logan's and and any good electrostat to sound pretty good on the grand scale compared to other speaker types at low volume. Same with Maggies/planars. Traditional cone designs can sound as good at low volume or even better (Example the Triangles I own) but are more hit or miss in general.

Magnepan and triangle are the low volume champs i have owned. The lightweight yet rigid paper cone used in tbe triangle bass/mid driver is a big reason. The Triangles are fairly efficient, maggies not, so that does not support any efficiency theories.

Ive heard quad and ml sound very good to my ears also at low volume in dealer systems though i am not a ml fan overall.

My less efficient ohms are also quite good at low volume though they excel at higher volumes. My dynaudios are average at low volume and very good at higher volumes despite their small size.

"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.

Mike60,

I would tend to agree with your assessment.

Lower efficiency often goes in hand with deeper bass extension. The Fletcher-Munson Effect that ALmarg referenced comes into play at lower volumes still which negates that aspect of the design somewhat at lower volume, in lieu of specialized equalization at the lower volume.

Higher efficiency speakers as a whole will probably tend to do all the rest better in general since they will punt somewhat on the bass extension in favor of other things, but there are many exceptions, so it is very hard to generalize effectively.

"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.

Newbee, you are right of course.

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

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.

Dover, yes i know what you mean.