what's going on with specs?

Take a look at the excellent Coda Amplifier, or integrated amp .
it has 3 powers to choose from Same price ,for example the lowesr power has the highest amount of 1st watts into pure     class-A . 18 1st watts in pure class A , 150wpc ,300, 600 wpc
250,500,, power supplies count , a sealed potted ,not open toroidal transformers,and Huge 3000,va ,and over 80k in capacitance, 120 short term amps on demand , no other amp comes close to this and a very good deal under $5500Mike at Audio Archon
will give you a good deal and very natural sounding 
10 year warranty, 5 year transferrable ,check it out .

Once you get beyond ample current flow for a given speaker load, and reasonable output power for a desired volume level, specs have seriously limited value in high end audio. As soon as manufacturers figured out how to build circuits that measured well according to spec rules, they pretty much became moot point....which was decades ago. Specs may have actually been detrimental to sound quality at some point, because good specs became more critical than good sound. Amplifier specs tell you nearly as much about sound quality as dimensions tell you about how comfortable a sofa is.

Below is a list of sonic attributes that are accurately described by specs: ;-)

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@unsound are we in violent agreement?

To each their own, but I think trying to apply a measurement methodology to musical reproduction is a fruitless endeavor. Music is art. We should be buying what sounds good to ourselves. However, I do understand the DTC model is driving the use of audio measurements in an attempt to determine what sounds good. It’s a sad state of affairs.