Are you saying that there is no correlation between high powered amps and power supplies with substantial more reserves over lower powered amps?
No, what I said was that amplification beyond what a receiver has built in is very rarely required in a typical home theater. It isn't a popular sentiment around here but it is the truth.
I would have answered yes to the OPs question that yes, a more powwerful amplifier is needed to drive low sensitivity low impedance speakers. He's correct in theorey.
Depending on all the variables I mentioned in the post. As an example, the amplifiers in my receiver (Pioneer 92) will drive electrostatic speakers louder than is comfortable. I know that because my dealer friend and I set up a demo for after-lunch entertainment at his store. The speakers go below 2 ohms at worst according to the specs (we didn't measure it.) The receiver drove them to uncomfortably high volume levels with no over heating and no clipping (attached an O-scope.) What more would a typical user need? You can argue that, theoretically, a receiver is a bad choice for driving electrostatic speakers and my answer would be - "it depends on many factors."
But I think what your saying is that its not always quarentied that a more powerful amp would have a power supply with more grunt. I'm also leaving your subwoofer arguement out of the equation and assuming speakers being driven full range. Follow me?
Obviously, that is true. There isn't anything important about "separateness" in an amplifier. An amp is designed how it is designed regardless of whether it has its own cabinet or not. The power supply and amplifiers in my receiver seem to be adequate for the task. An outboard amp might be even better theoretically but it wouldn't have any impact on sonics in my listening environment. Not even a little. As I mentioned. I have such an amplifier. I don't have any motivation to use it in my home theater. There is no point to it.
The "problem" as I see it, has existed for a long time. I've been involved with consumer audio since the 1950's and pro audio since the 1960's. Pro audio is a different world because it often involves filling large venues with sound with lots of people in them. That is a significantly different situation than watching a movie in your family room at home. Yet, the basic practices of pro audio have been carried over to consumer audio to an unreasonaby great degree and audiophiles have applied them to situations that are quite different. I suspect the manufacturers are behind it by constantly competing with each other with specifications.
And don't get me wrong. The pro audio world falls prey to some of the same things. There are all kinds of boutique, high end microphone preamps that, for the most part, perform about the same as those at a fraction of their price. But you won't find a recording engineer worrying about the brand of amplifier he uses to monitor his mixing. He doesn't consider that important. You won't see a pro audio person biwiring speakers. It woudn't even occur to him. You won't see him worrying about the brand of DAC chip in his playback equipment. It doesn't matter. The manufacturers don't even sell that concept or list it in the specifications in the pro audio world. It is purely a consumer phenomenon. Marketing drives the market.
Much of "truth" in home audio comes from the marketing battles between the manufacturers and the need for audio publications to print what is interesting and entertaining. Not all of it comes from real audio theory applied properly to a given set of circumstances and requirements. Sometimes the reality between "theoretically" and "actually" can be significant. Theoretically, you can have some "skin effect" on cables at audio frequencies. Does it matter?
