Perhaps the most annoying myth in audio of 2025? Talking about Loudness!

I have many multi kw amps to hit the transients.i also have a dB meter that frequently is above 100 db but only for a song or two osha states 80db for 8 hours.some of my ribbon speakers are ribbon and very eficient.you can check the spl on many speaker manufactures.i do have some that take 1kw.again the klipsch and my theater are very efficient and can be run by tube amps.but others need big amps due to the compliance of the cones and magnet structure it is distortion and clipping that kills speakers.some crossovers have watt limits as well.i have a crown 12000 hooked to 6 12 inch woofers sounds great.many of the class d are up in the 2k in 4 ohms and are known to shine in base parts express ultimax 2 are rated into the kw range. Marantz,mcintosh,rowland and atmosphere and others offer class d.i put my ear muffs on and have the sound waves hit my chest.so far no cardiac arrhythmia enjoy the music.i live on 10 acres there were 4 bucks and 10 doe I watched today in my back yard. So I can turn the dB up without complaints.enjoy the music and the journey no matter what the volumn.

I believe all you said is based on science and for you your listening level has hit the sweet spot.big kw amps have a higher level to handle transients.they are not running 90 percent of thier spec.power is voltage times amps.it is when you push your amps into clipping you get distortion.alot of my amps have the same distortion from 1 watt to 1.2kw look at the mcintosh 1.25 kw amp spec.they have protection that helps them avoid clipping.some of these amps have 50 transistors per monoblock.they run at a low percentage of thier maximum so low distortion at high levels.class d is very clean.now if I run my chifi amp rated 100 watts that has very little transient it will distortion. Speaker manufactures list thier spl or efficiency for a reason.some like infinity kappa 9 are known to be amp killers.my magico q7 look at jays audio review ,they need power to perform due to thier design.while my klipsch are very efficient.look at the hegel h30a monoblock numbers in the reviews.d sonic has a 2kw amp low distortion under 2500$. What a bargain and great to live in this audio age.you may be having an experience where your stapedial muscle in your middle ear tenses up to prevent your tympanic membrane from moving so much it's called recruitment of the vestibular cochlear nerve,the hearing nerve to logarithmic increase fire rate and can be painful in some people I'm glad you found your sweet spot for you and your equipment.its a great hobby based on science with some snake oil mixed in .like all things in life we just need to find the truth for ourself.enjoy the music nomatter what the level is.