AH-HA! It's not just me. My bottom line suspicion has always been that it's 100% about money. The production cost differentiation between making an equally nice 60wpc amp and a 200wpc amp (parts being the only difference, as labor, overhead and everything else are more or less static) must be negligible. However, you can sell the 200wpc amp (same brand, same build quality) for many times more money. Simple: costs stay near the same, margins increase by 2-300%, and all folks need to invest in is the marketing to convince consumers it's a good idea. Actually, it's so simple as to be rather obvious. That said, as convincingly noted, it's obviously more complicated than that on a couple of levels -- most of which, again, have very little to do with sound quality and more to do with the rather perverse tastes of the consuming public. Eh, maybe we are suckers (and by "we" I don't mean "us," but, rather the insidious "them." And please excuse the gratuitous use of quotation marks).
All else being equal, and assuming a fantasy world where price equates roughly to quality, I'd certainly prefer my, say, $3k dedicated to 60 super-watts than squandered across 200 commensurately inferior watts -- especially since I can get - no, have to get - the 60 watt amp for 1/3 the price as it was made 10 years ago.... (Yea, Lugnut, I've not been writing this for a couple of months for precisely that reason. What can I say, I just can't shut up). Cheers.
All else being equal, and assuming a fantasy world where price equates roughly to quality, I'd certainly prefer my, say, $3k dedicated to 60 super-watts than squandered across 200 commensurately inferior watts -- especially since I can get - no, have to get - the 60 watt amp for 1/3 the price as it was made 10 years ago.... (Yea, Lugnut, I've not been writing this for a couple of months for precisely that reason. What can I say, I just can't shut up). Cheers.