Nearfield listening - once more

I went to the hifi shop to buy a pair of 2 way stand mount speakers for late night low to moderate listening because my big floorstanders needed some volume to really jell. I hung out at the shop a few hours listening, talking to the owners and on my own decided to max the power to my floorstanders instead. With their permission I borrowed a pair of Mc611 power amps to replace my very nice Hegel H590. Low volume listening was transformed!!! detail, dynamics, image specificity, depth, everything just came to life like I've never heard from a large speaker b4. With less than 1 watt i was listening to an effortless presentation. 

I bought and sold a half a dozen used speakers in the $25k(retail)price range and was dissatisfied because low volume listening didn't satisfy for one reason or another. I wouldn't have believed a 600 watt amp would sound different than a 300 watt amp at a half a watt output, and maybe there's more going on than the wpc here, but I've become an advocate for component matching now as the most important thing we can do for our speakers.

Nearfield listening is a fun option to my living room system. Neither is better or worse, just different. My living room is appx 36 x 41 and the nearfield system is in a small 9 x 12 room. Nearfield system uses Snell Kiis and makes a beautiful sound down there.

@chrisoshea - this is my impression too. I am now investigating a much closer to the speakers listening position than I've been used to. Very interesting. Better? Maybe no, my speakers are designed to work with the room. Timbre is better with the speaker and room interaction. Yet detail - or some if it - seems better in the near field. So this is at least a very interesting 'alternative take' on how my speakers sound.

I should note that my interest in near field listening in my main system is also motivated by recent changes in my home office system, where I sit closer to the speakers, or use headphones. No crossovers - single driver speakers. No output transformers - OTL amp with NOS tubes takes the main amplification load. The office system sounds good. And even better, now, with a balanced headphone cable to my Nightowl headphones. Nearfield listening approaches headphones.