Who makes

Cdc,

The specs on the full range speakers you use indicate response down to only 125hz.

I suspect most any good quality amp should be able to do a good job with those.

The biggest, clearest challenges where power paradigm comes into play is generally at frequencies lower than 125hz. That's because power requirements increase exponentially with lower frequency for flat response. With bass extension down to only 125hz, and with a very small 3" driver alone, there is likely much less room for amps to differentiate themselves based on power paradigm alone. Not to say they will all sound the same, but the differences may be much less in the case of your specific speakers.

So, its always a good idea to understand the technology involved, but I am just wondering how much practically power paradigm matters really in the case of the OPs current 3" full range speakers specifically.

If a speaker change/upgrade is in the plans at some point, even more reason to clearly understand the options as best as possible before pulling the trigger.

"What is voltage good for? It seems like a cheap way make the amp appear to be powerful when reading the specs."

Obviously, there can be no power without voltage, but with home hifi, not all watts are created equally. True powerhouse amps are either large and heavy and use beefy power transformers and in most cases with typical less efficient Class A or even Class A/B amps will also require extensive heat sinks to dissipate the heat created by wasted power.

The exceptions are amps designed to be more efficient, like Class G amps that have been around for many years or more significantly these days, Class D amps, that achieve new frontiers in power amp efficiency and sound quality not possible prior/otherwise.

One of the most unique advantages of a tube amp in regards to how far teh watts go is soft clipping. Tube amps soft clip by nature, which means sonic artifacts of amp clipping is more acceptable to our ears than is the case with most hard clipping SS amps.

Best to avoid clipping altogether IMHO, which in the past was quite hard to avoid in many cases using traditional Class A/B technology. No longer the case with new higher efficiency and more practical (for many compared to a traditional Class A/B monster sized power amp) high power Class D amps.

I ran a high power/low current Carver m4.0t transfer function amp for years.

It did in fact work best and quite well overall with more "power paradigm" friendly speakers I owned concurrently, specifically Magnepan and Triangle. Though at 360 w/ch it went plenty loud, it left a lot to be desired especially in the bass region with others I also owned concurrently, like OHM, B&W and Dynaudio.

YEs, and most modern high quality speakers that are not large and use porting and other methods to deliver extended low end bass response out of a smaller package, as is popular with most these days, ARE difficult loads, even quality small monitor style speakers with top notch low end extension for their size.

COmbine that with a lot of the popular and low cost commercial amplification devices out there that also tend to emphasize many features in a small package that most can handle easily that use relatively small and inexpensive power supplies to deliver their watts as well and you have 90% of the reason why so many systems you hear normally have such mediocre sound, even if the speakers are in fact capable of much more.

Its like connecting a fire hose to a house spigot and expecting to be able to put out a house fire as well as the one hooked up to the high pressure (voltage), high volume (current) fire hydrant down the street.

The best amp is the one that matches best to the best speakers.

In the end, that's really all that matters, no matter how it is accomplished in any particular case.

Figuring out what will work best with what is the tricky part. The rest is largely subjective.

I've heard all shapes and sizes sound equally excellent, though probably never exactly the same. Pretty close though. The key was always someone who knew how to put the right pieces together and make it all work. That and good (but rarely ever close to perfect) source material to work with.

Only tube amps will ever have that really cool looking retro glow going on to boot though.

"A number that generally says more about the robustness of a solid state (but not tube) amplifier than all of the foregoing is how closely its 4 ohm continuous power rating approaches being double its 8 ohm rating."

That's the most common spec out there to use to help gauge ability to handle a "difficult" load.

Not perfect or 100% reliable always (numbers are meaningful but no single number can tell the whole story) but is generally a useful benchmark to help weed out pretenders.

If a similar rating is even provided into 2 ohm, that is usually a good omen as well that shows the maker really cares about these things.

Even more bankable than the specs is when reviewers like Stereophile actually perform measurements with 8 4 and 2 ohms when bench testing a product as part of the review.