The Best Sounding Systems can Play Loudly with Low Distortion

+1 ... After giving it some thought, I suspect these were components that were not capable of strong dynamic swings throughout the frequency range and so lacked the ability to sound "exciting" causing me to turn up the volume in order to establish an emotional connection with whatever music was playing...

A black background, uncompressed macro- and microdynamics, fast transient response, excellent low-level detail retrieval, articulate and tuneful bass, natural timbre, stable imaging with precise instrument separation, and expansive spatial cues all contribute to emotionally satisfying low-volume listening.  At around 55 dB SPL at the listening position, rather than simply quiet the music sounds complete, engaging, and lifelike from my 1st rig system.  This is something I could only dream of a year ago, but now I get to enjoy it every day.

I’m not a neophyte you know.

Then I’d expect you’d have no issue acknowledging that distortion levels are what separate a mediocre system from a great one. But if all your experience is comprised of playing with mediocre gear (not judged by expense) then I can understand why you’d believe distortion has little relevance. In 9/10 cases, the speakers that produce the lowest distortion at high SPLs also produce the least distortion at moderate levels. 
 

@helomech 

"But if all your experience is comprised of playing with mediocre gear (not judged by expense) then I can understand why you’d believe distortion has little relevance."

Then what do you consider mediocre? I'm sure we'd all be interested to know what you're listening to.

The best drivers on earth hide inside the high end pro speakers. These things are already designed to play clean at 125+db (no easy feat). When you play them at your easy peasy regular 85 to 90db, there is no stress on such drivers, distortion is vanishingly low, no compression, unlimited perception of dynamics, sky high clarity/detail ...especially if you have a high quality active crossover tied to a 100db+ sensitive speaker, etc ..not to mention pro-horns with driver phased dialed in correctly will start to do some holographic craziness.

The pro guys had it right all along with speakers.....if you're willing to pay them some higher end prices. 

The other alternative is to go with some big line arrays, which can become problematic for mid or small rooms, require large rooms.

W.r.t electronics, audiophile electronics continue to have the upper hand.

Audiophile speakers, however are a giant letdown...it's all about the cabinet polish, $110k paint job, Material X, Material Y, Material J (for jackdiddly), audiophile street cred, WAF and 60db sleepy time listening w/ [Diana Krall & Norah Jones].

Pro ethos speakers + higher end audiophile electronics is the recipe for audio nirvana.

I think that the ability to generate clean, great sound at high output SPL’s is the toughest challenge any audio system faces, be it home audio or professional.

Any decent home system should be able to reproduce enjoyable sound at low to moderate or even high moderate levels, but if you are looking for convincing real world output levels that sound great, that would take a very special system indeed.

I think that it is possible to put a system like that together, but you would have to be willing to step outside of the conventional audiophile rule book box to do it.