How much amplifier power do you really need?

[RebelMan]

I've got a different take on peak levels and how much power you need.

I do think bigger amps can deliver benefits with many speakers and those benefits may sometimes be related to avoiding clipping at peak levels but I do think more often the benefits of a larger amp are simply related to a bigger and better power supply rather than the ability to deliver more watts without clipping. If I were still listening to the kind of music I listened to in the '70s and 80's at the level I listened at then and were still using lower sensitivity speakers like Dynaudio and/or I had a bigger room then I would definitely be running a bigger amp than the 140 but I'm not and so far the 140 is meeting all of my needs and delivering the best sound quality I've ever had. YMMV.

You bring up some good points, but those points are related to amplifier architecture not power in the manner that is being discussed in this thread.  There are differing philosophies on amplifier architecture that you somewhat perhaps unknowingly touched on.  Some implementations use a few large capacitors where reaction times are slower but the headroom is greater.  Some use a lot of small capacitors where the reaction times are quicker but the headroom is lessor.  Still others use capacitors that are a mixture of both where the reaction times are maxed but headroom is nil. The Devialet tends to fit the last of these.

Bigger amps do not deliver better benefits than smaller ones just because they are bigger.  I replaced two comparatively massive mono blocks with one slender Devialet and the benefits were just as good if not better.