I don't think its hype at all, at least not for the Madrigal-designed Levinson 334/335/336 amps, or Krell amps of any generation. If you look at the guts of these things they're clearly designed to achieve their rated 2 ohm power. Many high-end audiophile speakers demonstrate impedance of 2 or 3 ohms in important octaves. I would argue that for most high-end speakers the 4 and 2 ohms power ratings are more important that the 8 ohm ratings, so the amps should be designed that way. Madrigal was even honest enough to tell us that the 334, for example, would require ~21 amps into 120v for the 334 to achieve 500w/ch into 2 ohms, and if the mains voltage fell off so would the power. How many manufacturers include reality like that in their owners' manuals?
There are only two solutions to your quandary about 8 ohm power. Run the power rails at a higher voltage and let the power fall off as impedance declines (at least into 2 ohms), or use output transformers a la McIntosh to better load-match the speakers to the output stage. Frankly, for low impedance loads I like the Madrigal/Krell approach a lot better.
I agree that there's not actually doubling going on with these amps, but if you read the test reports on them you can see that they're actually pretty close.
When I said hyped I refer to the talks of how the good ones double down and implications that those who don't are somehow not good or whatever. I can explain better with an example:
Compare:
A Bryston (none of their models double down), or you can substitute it with an ATI that does say 500W 8 ohms, 800W 4 ohms, and should in theory, do 400W 2 ohms as a safe assumption.
A Krell, or anything of your pick, that does say 250W 8 ohms, 500W 4 ohms.
I would think for most users, the Bryston would provide them with more power even though it won't double down.
It is like the hypes of people claiming the HK's real watts vs Denon and Yamaha's not so real watts simply because HK advertised lower outputs but typically ACD within the same price group. Now the facts are that mid range Denon AVRs consistently (may be a few exceptions but I doubt that) measured more outputs even in ACD or at least in 5 channel outputs than HK models in the same price range.
My other point is that, if an amp specifies the ability to double down, say 100W 8 ohm, 200W 4 ohms, 400W 2 ohms, then current is not the limiting factor, so is that amp voltage limited, that it can't do more than 100W. If they in fact cann do more than 100W 8 ohms, then I rest my case in terms of what I referred to as a circle game, or circular argument, or circle jerk.. Anyway my last point is more of my way of venting, having seen so much tech talks by people who really don't understand the theory behind, not that meaningful I admit.
