How much amplifier power do you really need?

[David A]

Thinking out loud: one way to be sure that you're not likely to be running into a peak power limitation on the Devialet is presumably to keep the volume control below about -20 dB.

(Assuming the volume control is such that 0 dB means full power output and -20 dB means 1/100 of full power output, both with maximum input level.  And that the input level peaks approach maximum.)

Maybe an interesting poll: what is the maximum volume control level you regularly use on your Devialet?

Your question in the previous post about how we would know if our amp was clipping on transients is a valid question and there's really no way, short of using something like an oscilloscope in real time, to tell. Most of us don't listen to music that way.

The volume control goes higher than 0 dB if I remember correctly. I'm forced to rely on memory since my amp is somewhere between France and here on it's return from repair for a faulty SD card slot. You know you're not in the world you grew up in when you need to get your amp repaired because it no longer reads SD cards. It should be back tomorrow and I can check then unless some inquiring mind wants to check in the meantime. I didn't just grow up in a world where amps didn't have SD card slots, I grew up in a world without SD cards.

Probably over 50% of my listening is done with the volume control at -20 dB or lower. I rarely go above -10 dB and usually that occurs with DSD files which seem to be 6 dB lower in level than PCM. I tend to only use higher levels with music with a high dynamic range which may mean that I could run into clipping given that I'm turning things up then because the average levels are low on many of the files I have with dynamic ranges of 15 dB or higher according to Roon. Most of the music I listen to has a dynamic range of 10-12 dB or so according to Roon but much of the more popular music I listen to, rather than my usual jazz, has a dynamic range of 7-8 dB or lower and I find myself reducing the volume level for much of that music.

It would be interesting to know how crest factor relates to the dynamic range measurement Roon uses. From reading what Roon have written about the dynamic range measurement in their user guide and other documents, it defines the range in which something like 95% of the music occurs, excluding the loudest peaks and the softest passages. It's not a measure of the range from silence to maximum peak level of the recording.