The unofficial dynamic range data base (Google search will pull it up) illustrates very convincingly (just Enter name of artist or group) how the dynamic range has suffered over the past twenty or so years as subsequent reissues of once dynamic pop and rock albums have been compressed more and more. Even the first releases are hopelessly compressed in many cases.
The first watts
Okay, let's see if I can ask this question correctly. If you have an class A/B amp and the first 10 Watts is class A and after that it's all class B what happens if you have an inefficient speaker, do the first 10 W get used up real quick so that you're almost never hearing class A amplification, or does it work differently than that?