I once inadvertently sent Richard Strauss with the full force of a Belles 350A into my Utopias. A jerk house guest had been twisting knobs and turned the volume all the way up while the system was off. I turned on the power conditioner which activated the preamp and the tuner (from whence emanated the Feierlicher Einzug). Twenty seconds later, while I was in the kitchen, the amp kicked in.
The sound was so loud that I had to hold my hands over my ears while I ran to the rack to shut it down. My neighbor came running out thinking (he said) that there had been an explosion or a plane crash.
The speakers were not damaged at all but my nerves sure were. So.....if you want a fine system that can play loud, I can testify to JMLabs.
That being said, at extreme volume the human hearing mechanism overloads and introduces its own distortion so when you get past a certain point, it matters little how the speaker sounds. Just grab some JBLs or Cerwin Vegas and save your money for concert tickets.
Besides, it won't take much of that kind of listening to damage your ears, anyway, and then you won't have to bother with upgrades.
Will
