Volume is air pressure. If one amp is producing more air pressure than the other then it is playing louder (by definition).
In that situation your volumes are not matched.
Indeed, I'm well aware of the volume matching. I'm just mentioning that, even at MAX volume on my Denon, the air pressure doesn't come close to the medium volume on my Cambridge Audio.
Perceptively, Denon at max volume hurts my ears, but it still cannot produce the gut churning pressure that the cambridge audio beefs out.
So this is my question - is the power the one that is at work here? Denon is basically not able to push enough power to boost low hz to give the right amount of response?
That's basically my assumption for now. Plugging back the CXA80 makes everything feel beefy again.
From my own understanding of how speakers work:
Power to push higher hertz is far cheaper than power to push lower hertz. In order to make lower sound, you need far far more power and more amplitude of movement (more like acceleration of the cone)
Whilst denon can push the tweeter and the cone to create louder mid tones, it cannot get it to create louder lower tones as that requires far more power than it can deliver. So that's why I'm hearing really sharp sounds but missing that low pressure omph.