What actually determines volume power? Is it watts?

you need a new system, from intergrated to pre+power amplifier

The "Stereophile" review of the Yamaha AS-3200 pointed out that this very fine integrated amplifier should not be used with loudspeakers that present a load of 4 ohms or less.  That makes me wonder about the loudspeakers that you are using. Otherwise, many other contributors have offered some good advice.

I hope you sort this out.  The AS-3200 is a wonderful piece of hi-fi gear.

The question on if the OP needs more watts to drive more volume is an easier question to answer than I first realized and touched on by some but not specifically called out.  The Integrated Amp has fully functional power meters.  At 70 % volume, what is the amp putting out per channel?  If it’s a ton of watts, 70 % of the 100 watts then looking at a different amp might make sense.  I’d guess it’s far lower and the amp can put more out if the volume is cranked further.  If that still isn’t delivering the volume the OP is looking for, then really honing in on the speakers sensitivity and amps power supply / amperage along with watts, synergy with all the gear in the chain, specific attention with matching the gain levels of the gear would be the way to go.  Steve Huff did an extensive review, tried at least 3 different speakers with it, concluded the 3200 would likely drive 95 % of speakers out there.  He concluded it’s not a beast like a Coda, Krell, Pass but should be able to drive most speakers. 

I agree with the comments that there is an equation here: amplifier output / speaker efficiency, and that speaker efficiency usually matters more. 

My Altec 604Cs are 101db, 16 ohms. That’s way more efficient than most stuff being made today. 

For what it  might be worth and given that our systems are VERY different, here is my experience.  I have a 75W tube amp (ARC Ref75se using 8 ohm tap) driving speakers with a nominal  impedance of 8 ohms and a sensitivity of 91db-listening room (and 89db anechoic chamber).  I have never seen the meters on the amp ever go higher than 5-10W.  I usually listen with the volume setting on my preamp (0-103) (ARC Ref6) between 3 and 26, background and dedicated listening when I want to blown away so that nothing else exists.  I have very "transparent" (NOT the brand) cables.  Anything louder borders on painful and I am afraid of blowing something out.  There is no where in this system to adjust the gain.  I wish there was because I'd like to use less attenuation of the volume.

With respect to volume, lots more in the signal path matters. I do not stream. Source: caching server with its own internal SSD, Macbook pro running JRiver Media Center, hi-res files on computer or external SSD, and embarrassed to reveal you tube.   I run only NOS (no over sampling, all processing is disabled in JRiver except volume leveling and PEQ - parametric equalizer).  Volumes for each source are different.  All sources run without attenuation.

Conclusion, to echo what many others have suggested: this needs a systems approach.  The best solution to OP's original question would be found in the synergy of the individual components of the system as a whole.  And for ultimate endgame satisfaction the solution must include the often forgotten details that matter like the room's dynamics and the listener's hearing, sonic & music genre preferences.  It has taken a long time to sort through all this for myself.

SPL which answered all my questions (and is fun to play with) Toptes TS-501B from Amazon for less than $30.

Happy listening dear friends, Leon AKA Timbrehead

@dman777 you’ve sparked one of the best threads I’ve seen in a long time with many members taking deep dives into watts / amperage / speaker relationship.  A lot of members took a lot of time to delve into the topic and provided a lot of great advice and guidance.  I’d echo what others already have form a speaker / amp pairing.  Gaining Volume from an Amp relative to your speakers is more complex than just looking at the speaker sensitivity rating and the watts rating on the amp.  Improving performance / volume with your current speakers is more complex than manufacture #’s on an amp and or speakers. As many have referenced, having visibility to your set up would really open up the type of detailed advice that could be provided, not just your speakers but everything in the chain.  Gain values apply to DAC’s, Streamers, CD players, Turntables and that impacts the volume knob on your Yamaha Reciever.  
 

Best analogy I’ve seen when talking about amplifier performance and the ability for an amp to drive a set of speakers is that to an engine, not all Horsepower is created equal, following that logic, not all Watts are created equal.  For an engine, torque plays a huge role in performance of the HP that an engine produces, where and when the torque and HP shows up in the RPM range of the engine plays a huge role in how the performance of the engine translates to the performance of the car.  It’s the same for an amplifier, not all watts are created equally.  In SS amps, so much of the control of the speaker has to do with the amps ability to control the woofer, drivers and as many others have referenced, deal with the wide variation of impedance requirements.  A large power supply coupled with the proper design / implementation is what allows the combination of amperage and watts that drive speakers to effortless volume.  Having a reserve of power to then drive watts / amperage is what gives an amp headroom.  When you pair an amp with speakers you need to understand what type of car you are dropping the engine into.  You wouldn’t drop a race car engine in a Ford Super Duty 350 and you wouldn’t drop a diesel 6.7 liter V8 into a Toyota Camry.  Same principles apply when pairing an amp with speakers.  You need the right combo of watts / amperage, one without the other however won’t get you to fully realize a speakers full potential.  An amp with a lower wattage rating but a higher amperage rating, power supply that can deliver more current will almost always drive speakers to higher levels than an amp that has a higher watts rating but lacks the power supply to deliver amperage / current.  Again though, grab a pair of high efficiency speakers and hook them up to high amp / watt Coda or Krell amps and you won’t get past turning your equipment on and you could have music playing rather loudly with the volume dial at zero, create as many problems as not having enough watts / power.  
 

Thanks for starting the thread, it generated a ton of thoughtful, insightful replies within the Gon community, good luck. 

@baconboy 

Bryston offers many different colors/finishes on their faceplates, although they are the same design.

Regards,

barts

Hello dman777.  By now, you have waded through a lot of anwers to your question. They are all pretty good. Let's talk first about speaker sensitivity. A speaker rated at 84 db (we assume the ratings are honest) will play 6 db softer than a speaker rated at 90 db. It will take four times the power to drive the 84 db rated speaker to the same volume (loudness?) in the same room. A 94 db rated speaker would need only one tenth the power to play the same loudness as the 84 db rated speaker.

The advertisements don't tell you that, but it's true. Do you have some input device with meters on it to indicate the strength of the output signal. Watch the needles dance. A 10 db increase calls for ten times the power from an amp. A 20 db increase call for 100 (Yikes!) times the power from the amp. Amps that double their output power into four ohms verses what they put out at eight ohms have pretty hefty power supplies. A two ohm rating at four times the power output indicates a really strong power supply. Check the ratings of tube amps verses solid state amps. Also look at the distortion percentages at rated power. Tube amps are often rated with maximim power at 10% (harmonic) distortion. Solid state amps are often rated a so much power at 1% distortion. Tube amps can seldom double their output power into a 4 ohm load verses an 8 ohm load. All of this means that when the drum goes BOOM! an amp is called upon to put out a lot of juice in a hurry! Can the amp do it? You want an amp that never has to sweat. An amp rated at 100 watts that has to put our 150 on occasion (not even a 3db difference in apparent loudness) will sound less pleasant than the same input with the same speakers in the same room, with a 200 watt rated amp and not have a problem at all. The more efficient your speakers are, the happier your amp will be. I hope this helped. Enjoy the music!

OP:

Lets simplify.  If you feel you are "almost there" with your current amp and you are looking for a reason to upgrade, go ahead.  However if you feel there's a big gap between how loud you can play and how loud you want to play the math isn't in favor of a 2x power difference being your solution.

It's also possible your amp has plenty of juice but it's your speakers which are compressing and reaching their thermal and/or mechanical limits.  They do have limits. 

So, if you feel you have a big gap between where you are and where you want to go, it's more likely to be solved by higher efficiency speakers.

Have fun shopping!

Erik

So what spec do I look at instead of wattage?

Depends on your speakers.

What are you playing?

The issue may be the speaker / amp matching and knowing your speakers would help.  Your speakers may be out of dynamic range or they may have a difficult impedance profile. 

Assuming you had easy to drive speakers, and they were not even a little stressed, then Wattage would help you understand how much more you needed.  Doubling of power = 3 dB SPL.  Doubling perceived volume = 10x the power, and 10 dB louder.

My 48 watts/ch tube amp creates the same amount of volume as my 250watt/ch ss amp ( that doubles down to 400 watts/ch at 4 ohms). The reason has to do with the ability of the transformers and the amount of current delivery to my speakers. Not wattage. 

dman77

For every 3 db SPL increase in output volume requires a doubling of the amplifier watts being used. So if your speaker sensitivity is 88 db, which means that it takes 1 watt of amplifier power to drive that speaker output to 88 db at 1K Hz measured 3 feet away. It will take 2 watts to drive it to 91 db, 4 watts to get to 94 db, 128 watts to get to 109 db and 256 watts to get to 111 db and that is before we consider the effects of the inverse square law which states that you will loose 6 db of SPL for every doubling of distance from the source.

To answer your question more directly, it’s a combination of amplifier power, speaker sensitivity, source level, room size, music type (low frequencies will eat more power than high) and I’m sure there are other factors I don’t know about. A 200 watt amp is a 200 watt amp and will drive a speaker close to the same volume regardless of price, but a better amp may do it a little cleaner, with better low end or  better peak output, etc. etc.

@dman

If, as some suggest, you look at changing both your speakers and your integrated amplifier, could I suggest you look at powered speakers where the manufacturer has effectively done the matching for you?

The little KEF LS50s are the knockout class-leader in their price range and play much, much louder than their appearance suggests. Each active speaker includes a 260-Watt class D amplifier for the bass and a 100-Watt class A/B amplifier for the treble.  So you effectively get bi-amplification and monobloc operation.  A bonus is that these units have concentric bass and treble drivers, so they throw a coherent wavefront resulting in a massive soundstage and a much bigger than usual listening area.

There are much more expensive powered speakers in the KEF range worth considering as well.

As others have said, one important role of the power amplifier is to control the momentum of a dynamic speaker, so it actually stops moving in short timeframes.  Eliminating speaker wires allows the amplifier feedback circuit to directly interact with the speaker

I run older Harmon Kardon Citation 22 amplifiers. These are pretty loud, even through my 91db JBL L100t3's. But, I always wanted a little more than the amp could provide. So, I bought another one. Switches on the back enable me to use them as mono blocks. The two amps provide 800 watts total power which makes the music much louder than even I can stand and I'm not beating the hell outta them.

For the money u spent on this amp, there are plenty of better options out there. Like the one mentioned , Hegel, Belles, Bryston, audio research all have plenty of current to drive speakers to sound full, at a lower volume. But all these people are right. Are you looking for music at levels that make your ears bleed? Most people in a standard room depending on speaker efficiency, couldn’t go past 20-30 watts. I mean one time with a pair of 4 ohm speakers with an efficiency of 90db I hit a peak of 60 watts and the spl was 110 db. Your talking hearing loss down the road. Just my 2 cents.

Another approach, assuming you don’t know anyone that would loan you an amp to try out is to buy an amp from a company that allows a trial period and a no fault return policy if it doesn’t meet the need. VTV produces a range of class D amps that have a trial period as part of the terms of sale and it might be worth exploring that avenue. If you have an aversion to class D as some people do, this would not be a choice you would make, but I would encourage you to consider class D as a possible solution. Currently produced modules from Hypex and Purifi have excellent sonic characteristics along with the advantages of light weight, high power, especially for low impedance loads. Plus they are extremely efficient so power consumption is considerably less than any other possible choice. That might not mean much to you if you are running a 2 channel only system. But electric power costs are going up and quite substantially in my area. I think class D is the future of high end audio, especially for home theater, because of all the advantages it brings to the table.

We need to define a couple of things. 

What is your top listing SPL?

What are your speakers, what is the sensitivity, power handling?

Music source? 

Think you might need a whole new system to keep you happy. My amp is 200w high current, but I have 100db sensitivity on my speakers, they say they top out at 116db, On my setup, you cannot be in the room at 70% volume. It's uncomfortable. Most of my listening is around 1w of power, but at my listening spot is 70ish DB. 

The volume of output power is best measured in the amperage output.  Output in wats is too easy to manipulate by the manufacturer. 

Why not borrow an other amp from a friend and see what that does in your system?

The Yamaha is an integrated amp. So the volume control follows the preamp section gain structure. If that unit allows the use of an external preamp with more gain, the volume knob won't have to be turned up as much, and the power amp section will respond to the gain of the preamp. 

My tube preamp has much more gain than my SS. The volume heard when the tube preamp is at 11 o'clock is equal to the SS volume at 1 o'clock.

So if possible, try an external preamp with more gain and you won't have to turn the volume control up as much. 

As others have mentioned, the speakers will be the biggest determinate since it represents the load on the amplifier.

But to answer your question directly:

Amperes = Watts/Voltage  or to flip this around Watts = Voltage * Amperes.  There's more to it than this, but I won't go into more details because the calculation of power to watts is pretty straight forward, but unhelpful to answer your question. Plus most manufacturers won't give you enough information to answer this question.

If you like your speakers, you either need to buy a much more powerful amplifier or if your amp has a subwoofer out, you might be able to get more perceived loudness by with a powered subwoofer, depending on the kind of music you listen to.

Looks or power? I love the looks of the Yamaha AS3200. It’s beautiful and reminds me of a Yamaha integrated I owned way back in the 80s. I went looking to upscale the power for my Maggie’s recently but power wise the Yamaha wouldn’t do the job. I compromised the looks for power by getting a Hegel H400 and am loving the upgrade. It’s a shame manufactures can’t offer different styles for the front of their products. Sort of like the removable fronts on car stereos a few years back.

Or you can go Class D, but do your research. 

So what spec do I look at instead of wattage?

Wattage is a good spec in this case. What you want to see is something like:

200 watts into 8 ohms

400 watts into 4 ohms

Either, 800 watts into 2 ohms, or, Stable at 2 ohms.

Doubling the wattage as the impedance halves is a sign of a high current amp. As for sound quality, look for the number of Class A watts before it cuts to AB. Coda is very clear on this information, look at their #8 model as a good example. 

Its definitely true that many receivers today when pushed moderately hard reveal their engineering shortcomings all too quickly. There are huge differences between manufacturers amplifiers for a given watt rating. Companies are in general not very honest about their amplifier power ratings, so just because the amp is supposed to be 100 w RMS doesn't mean it is under actual use. A large part of the problem is the never ending reach for more channels of amplification in a home theater setting which further exceed the demands of the modest power supplies in every home receiver sold today. Additionally, some amplifiers will struggle to provide enough current for low impedance loads. Many speakers rated at a nominal 8 ohms are really closer to 4 ohm speakers and demand way more current than an honest 8 ohm load would require for the same acoustic output. I know of one speaker that is rated as a 4 ohm speaker that the impedance is actually 3.2 ohms at its lowest point. These low impedance loads put huge current demands on todays multi-channel receivers.

Further, the water gets muddied further by speaker manufacturer ratings for sensitivity because the conditions under which that sensitivity is measured are often not stated or are generous in much the same way amplifier manufacturers ratings are generous. So its very hard to make an accurate assessment of the performance you will get with any given component pairing of speaker and amplifier.

In your own situation, you might well be content with your system with an increase in power for the speakers you own, but you need to understand what their power handling capabilities are. In my own experience, choosing an amplifier that has a power rating of twice what the speakers are rated for is a safe bet. This ensures the amplifier will have approximately 3 db of headroom at the speaker's rated power. Find out what the minimum impedance of your speakers are either thru finding a reviewer that tests for that number or thru the manufacturer. Make sure the amplifier you have chosen will deliver the power you want at that minimum impedance.

I think in all likelihood your receiver is current limited and is not supplying enough current to keep the speakers happy at your chosen listening level. Having a measurement of the kind of levels you listen to will help you determine if you can fix your problem with more power or not. If you are already listening at 110 db levels as measured at 3 feet from one speaker, the odds of more power fixing your problem are much lower than if your chosen average level is 90 db. That 20 db difference is huge in terms of the power required and if consistent 110 db levels are what is necessary you just might not be able to get there with your chosen equipment.

To wrap this up, go to the app store  on your phone and get a sound level meter app...there are a bunch of them available for any kind of phone you might have. You want to choose one that will allow a peak and hold measurement. Make some measurements at your preferred levels, and report back so we can help you decide what steps to take next. Most likely a modest increase in rated power at the load impedance imposed by your speakers will get you where you want to be. A stand alone amplifier driven from the preamp outputs on your receiver will very likely get you to where you want to be. This will relieve the receiver power supply of doing the heavy lifting. Whether to buy monoblocks or stereo amps is another question and the answer to that is largely dictated by economics though I am sure there are those here who would disagree on that. Either way you are going to spend some money...the question is where to spend it. If you really like your current speakers and don't want to make a change there, then amplifier power is the only other remedy for 'not loud enough.' Choose carefully grasshopper. :)

My guess is that this amplifier is thinning out at high volumes and can’t keep up with the demands of the music and the speakers. A high current amp of the same wattage would probably sound fuller at high volumes and might scratch the itch. 

@zlone that is is exactly. So what spec do I look at instead of wattage?
 

 In what is becoming too common around here, the OP seems to have disappeared...

My Carver amp 1.5t and Acoustic Research AR-9 play very loud . You don't realize how loud until you try to talk to someone else in the room

Let me third the question: what Speakers?

First and foremost, it would be helpful to know if the OP has ever undergone an audiometry evaluation and what the results were.

Knowing the speakers will likely make this thread more informative, and thus more enjoyable (for me anyway).

No system logged in profile.

As long as you aren’t straining or clipping the amp, it makes no difference where the volume knob ends up. As a matter of fact, you want to be using the least amount of attenuation for best sonics.

Many people conflate gain and power. You could buy a different amp with even less power that gets you to the same volume level at 50% of the range. If you can get to the level you want with your current amp by using most of the 30% of the volume control you have left, you don’t need a different amp.

You are worrying about something that shouldn’t be worried about.

My guess is that this amplifier is thinning out at high volumes and can’t keep up with the demands of the music and the speakers. A high current amp of the same wattage would probably sound fuller at high volumes and might scratch the itch. I would look for a 150-200 watt minimum amp that doubles its wattage from 8 to 4 ohms, and is stable into 2 ohms. Coda, Pass, Krell etc.

Here's an opposite story.  I have an old Krell stereo amplifier, pure class A, the KSA80.  It is rated at a mere 80-Watts per channel into an 8-Ohm load.  It is a big beast, I struggle to pick it up, and it has been rated as one of the 10 most influential amplifier designs of all time.

But it is also rated at 160-Watts per channel into 4-Ohms, and 320-Watts into 2-Ohms.  Each time the load halves its impedance, the amp delivers twice the current, and Watts is current times voltage drop.

I now use it with KEF Reference 1 speakers.  These have a sensitivity of 85-dB for a 2.83V signal at 1-metre distance, so quite low efficiency.  Nominally 4-Ohm speakers, they drop to 3.2-Ohms.  I have NEVER hit my personal volume limit and I play music loud.

Pushing the lowest bass out to a powered subwoofer obviously relieves the main amp.  I have a class D subwoofer rated at 1250-Watts RMS, or 3000-Watts peak power.  It has an input level selector and I run it on level 3 out of 60.

When looking at amplifier specifications, they tell almost none of the real story.  Look at the amount of distortion they claim at the rated power. Is the rated power with just one channel driven? How much does it drop when another channel is driven?  Droop here tells you the power supply cannot keep up.

Is the power given into 8-Ohms, or maybe 6 or 4-Ohms?  If it is for 4-Ohms, expect it to be only half that at 8-Ohms!  Does the power double each time the load impedance halves?

Almost all speakers have nasty dips in their impedance in crossover regions.  There is no such thing as a speaker that is 8-Ohms right through its frequency range.

If your speakers don't play loud enough, you could try sitting closer ... and I could keep banging on, but I won't.

I have run into the same issue with my set-up.  I have a Parasound A21 amp that is rated at 250 watts at 8 ohms and 400 watts at 4 ohms.  My speakers are Martin Logan 60 XL, rated at 4 ohms and 92 sensitivity — so should be easily handled by my amp,  But I seem to run out of steam too at the higher volume levels.  On Reddit, a guy told me that amperage is more important than watts when it comes to volume.  He looked up stats for my amp and said his smaller amp had higher amperage and that is why he never ran out of volume on his rig.  I don’t know about these things, but I just assumed that a high wattage amp would be equipped to drive high sensitivity speakers to anything I could want.  

Cl a ss d amps like d sonic pascal ant vtv ncore can put > 2000 watts into 4 ohms and sound much better that previous versions.there around 2k$.a fosi audio mono with 48 volt gan power supply from fosi is about 200$ and puts out 300 watts mono block. Most have 30 day trial. Power or watts is energy times amps that's the equasion.class d amps are light 80% efficient due to design. Marantz mcintosh denon ect are now all making class d amps. Might be worth a try for you.does your yamaha have a pre out if so use it as your pre amp.enjoy the musicand the search.

I’ve definitely found that some albums stream louder than others.  I really hate playlists for that reason. Two songs play at a good level and then the next song comes out blasting so loud it makes your ears bleed. Than the next tune is quiet so you turn the volume up.

Just as a matter of curiosity...,

My Yamaha RX-Z9’s menu allows each input a separate, "trim" volume control so that you can match the apparent volumes from the different sources without resorting to the primary volume knob each time you change the input source.

I’m assuming that your Yamaha would have similar (maybe a bad assumption), but if it does, have you tried to turn up the volume here so that you don’t end up at 70% of the main volume knob setting?

Agree that we need to know the speaker.  In addition to amplifier power, speakers for the consumer market may start to compress early on.  That is, the power output is no longer proportional to input due to physical limitations of the device, including thermal.

If you double the power, and go from 1 W to 2W you should see +3 DB across all frequencies, but most speakers quickly start to compress, and produce less than 3dB gain per doubling of power. 

If you are at home, and 100W is not enough, you should evaluate the amp+speakers and even the room before making a fix, but jumping in amplifier size is not likely your answer.

@immatthewj Really depends on zooming in on what the OP is hearing when he feels he's run out of juice. 

Generally speaking, a current constrained amplifier produces a flat output into an easy load but at difficult loads the frequency response starts to track the speaker's impedance curve somewhat. 

So with an ESL, an amp will lose output in the treble.  Roger Sanders of Sanders Speakers rightfully points out you need an amp with not just current, but high frequency current drive, which his Magtech amps provide.  With a speaker with a normally bad bass output like several Focals, the amp will sound soft in the mid-bass, where the speaker dips to or below 3 Ohms. 

Unless your speakers are up to the job, they may not get much louder no matter how much power you use.

Max speaker output is limited by a number of factors, but as a rule of thumb speaker sensitivity +20-23 dB is about the practical limit. So, a KEF LS-50 is about 84dB sensitivity  and is capable of peak output put of 104dB at 1M distance which requires a 100W amp. A JBL 4367 with 94dB sensitivity is good for 117dB with 200W driving.

A 3dB increase in sound pressure level requires doubling the power, adding more lower is in general and expensive and  ineffective way to make your system go louder. You also need to know the room impacts.

Add 3 dB for a stereo pair, and subtract 6dB for every doubling of the 1M reference distance. The size of the room, and it's acoustics are obviously key as well, but without specific knowledge of the room dimensions and RT60 it's impossible to calculate their impact, other than to say room gain is a function of acoustical spatial loading, and most domestic rooms behave somewhere between half-space and quarter space loads depending on size, speaker location, and frequency. Above 1000Hz, most speakers behave like half-space loads, below 200-300 hz, quarter-space loads. That's all a function of the wavelength of a given frequency. Very low frequencies  can't even be made in most rooms, rather they rely on direct pressuring and depressurizing the room.

Look for an SPL (sound pressure level) meter app for your smart phone.  Maybe someone here can give you a specific name to find.  Ideally, you want one that can be set to give you average values as well as peaks.

Your gain may vary.

As others have stated the OP needs to tell us his entire signal chain and he also needs to use an SPL to tell us what his preferred listening level is.

@dman777 

It would be helpful if you disclosed brand+model speakers so that we can get an idea of power needed.

Also, seems your mistaken, the Yamaha AS-3200 amp is only 100/150wpc 8/4ohms as per Stereophile and retailer Crutchfield, which is on the low side (including current) for average sensitivity speakers.

@erik_squires

+1 …..

(1) it’s important to highlight the logarithmic relationship in adding more volume (db) with the the added amp watts required by themselves - in isolation specs - to get the volume increase.

A 100W amp is only twice as loud as a 10W amp. And a 1000W amp is twice as loud as 100W. This might put the cost of high wattage amps into some perspective.

The size, quality, quantity and impedance of a speaker has a huge effect on the volume of an amp. First off, if you match the impedance of an amp with that of the speaker, the amp is able to deliver its full power. Mismatching to a lesser degree won’t sound as loud dynamic as hoped, and perceived as disappointing.

(2) Speakers matter too in terms of your expected volume increase boost.

(A) For example, your speakers may are rated at about XX dB. You may be faced with a more expensive speaker to boost volume upwards to XX + 3db. . That’s double the volume step.

(B) Other speaker choice variables include the speaker projection and dispersion. The more speakers or bigger speakers you have, the more air they’re pushing and the louder it is. But if you’re on an open stage or a large listening room, they won’t sound as loud as they do if you’re in a small, enclosed room. The reverberation helps to redirect the sound waves back at you rather than disperse into open air.

(3) The wildcard of additional amp “ headroom” to provide a clean audio output, especially if you are cranking up the volume .

So, what is amplifier headroom? Amplifier headroom is the amount of power that an amplifier is able to generate before it starts overdriving. Overdriving means adding gain to the signal, natural gain coming from either the preamp, or the power amp section, or both. In other words, amplifier headroom is just how loud and clear can an amplifier performance be heard naturally.

Relying on the speaker manufacturer’s estimate of power handling is pretty much useless marketing bafflegab and maybe even grossly misleading as incomplete information. The fact that a speaker can possibly handle 300 watts doesn’t mean it’s ever going to see that much power. In fact, most amplifier power spent driving speakers under musical conditions is typically below 50 watts, with an average of around half that.

Where peak power gets big is on low frequencies and large transients. Which is why equipment manufacturers once attempted to rate amplifiers with Musical Power rather than their RMS power.

. When music demands power the last thing you want is to run out, or even get close to the system’s limitations. On those short event peaks and crescendos, we hope for unfettered performance whose sonic qualities match those of softer passages. Unfortunately, this is a rare achievement because of too little headroom. Hint: it gets worse the louder you crank it if the headroom is modest or limited.

Amp Headroom is the necessity for reproducing effortless music.

Headroom maintains an amplifier (or speaker’s) linear performance region—an area we hope to keep proper. Once we exceed an instrument’s linear region, its sweet spot, sound changes and not for the better. The closer we get to a device’s limits the less free and open the music will sound.

Here’s a good way to calculate this. Most amplifiers and speakers are comfortable at about 20% of their rated OEM marketing specs published output. Exceed that and you are a risky venture into areas of strain, struggle, and compression.

TAKEAWAY; amp Headroom matters big-time when music matters,,,and volume heads whims are tested.

@erik_squires , could OP's issues also be due to (referring to a thread/question that I started last night) his amp not having enough current to maintain the wpc it is rated/listed as putting out?

OP:

I'm saying that you'll only get 3dB louder, which is very little, by going to 200 Watts vs. 100 Watts. 

If you are really constrained in your dynamic range due to power, you are going to need more than that big of a jump to get to happy.

With the Yamaha, my normal listening level is at 70% and if I go any higher then you can tell it is underpowered.

Starts clipping?

If that's the case, I would think that more gain would just make it start clipping at a lower volume knob setting.