how does current work in an amplifier?

Unsound, certainly! I think we can add to that, heat, as well (although I know of transistor amps that run as hot as tubes). We are talking about a very traditional set of tradeoffs when these aspects are brought into the conversation: convenience vs performance, an issue you see in nearly every field of endeavor.

Mapman, Of course semiconductors have improved immensely since the beginning of the art! I'm not saying there is anything wrong with 'progress' in of itself. I'm just pointing out a simple fact.

Dob, I like the idea of EPDR; like other specs it does not appear to tell the whole story, but certainly would standardize a lot of things that can be hard to winnow from the other specs you see. IME, Magnaplanars seem to have an easy EPDR rating compared to a lot of 4 ohm speakers I have seen. This would be very apparent if such a spec were commonplace.

Atmasphere, of course many of find some ss amps offer a balance of both objective and subjective performance that is preferable. I am confident that many speaker designers welcome the opportunity to avail their design talents towards making speakers for those ss amplification attributes for the sheer performance opportunities those combinations provide.

One possible solution to giving an amp some 'figure of merit' based on reactive loads is to Standardize such a load and let amps fight it out.

Also, I've seen an amp tested the following ways.
Into a resistive load....Try it at 4, 8 and 16 ohms.
Into a +45degree reactive load at the various resistances
Into a -45degree reactive load at the various resistances.
Afte the above, you can draw a very nice plot....would be a 3-d plot and visually tell how an amp performs into real world loads at a glance.

However, for easy of testing, the 'standard' speaker load makes more sense.
It could be reproduced anywhere at any time by any competent tech and the results would compare with all others using the same method.

But, that's just my take.

Unsound, There has been testing in the laboratory that has quantified subjective listening objectively. What the testing has shown is that if the sound system violates human perceptual rules, the processing of the music moves from the limbic system to the cerebral cortex. Pretty interesting stuff.

Guys, your knowledge is impressive, but gets confusing for the relative neophyte!

The main takeaways that I got from the last several threads are:

1) do not get hung up on current because Ohms Law demonstrates that current really does not tell the story - if there are watts, then there is current, and vice versa.

2) most music is played at the low end of the watts - rarely does one continuously use much more than 10 or 15 watts.

So.....if I am running a Mac MA6300 integrated at 100 wpc @ 8 ohms and 160 wpc @4 ohms....with the volume control no more than half way....and at this volume level, the meters jump to 100 wpc into 8 ohms just occasionally....but I would like it little bit louder...and I feel that I am missing something.....

Does this mean I am missing the top end of the dynamics due to the amp's powerguard feature kicking in to prevent clipping?

Does this mean that a Mac with more wpc power would give better dynamics (as well as more loudness)?

Or does it mean that the Magnepan 1.2's just lack that last bit of slam because they are not box speakers?

I realize that I am mixing dynamics and loudness here but I think that you can get my drift....

Your continued discussion and feedback, please.

And thanks!