But here it's not really relevant how "farther away" one sits from the speakers, because Amir's measurements go electronically beyond even the worst-case scenario -- voltage wise -- for over-driving that amp -- ie greater than the 1.6V needed to thrash the Monolith. And in my case, 1Volt is enough to thrash the Rotel.
As I said before, that is true in your case because your amp is only rated 120/130 W. I am just trying to explain to you why I think Amir is doing the right thing by testing the AV7705 at 4 V XLR instead of only 2.4 V XLR. Again, 2.4 V XLR for you is great, probably no need for more, but others may have very different requirements than yours, such as higher power amps and may have lower gains too so they may need much higher pre-out voltage than 1.2 V RCA/2.4 V XLR.
So it is relevant because how much power output you need for your power amplifier depends a lot on your sitting distance. Every time you double the distance you lose 6 dB of SPL so for the same SPL you will need 4X the power.
It also depends on the SPL you like, some people don't need more than 70 dB when watching even Star war kinds of movies, with peaks to 90 dB, while others, though I guess not too many, may prefer spl closer to reference level (85 dB/105 dB max. peak).
Below is just a numerical example, if you already know it then please ignore, I am doing it just in case..
Person A
Distance ..................................................................................................................................................... 2.5 meters
Sound pressure level required by the listener when watching movies............................... 76 dB/96 dB peak
Speaker sensitivity.................................................................................................................................... 87 dB/2.83V/1m
Speaker impedance.................................................................................................................................. 8 ohms
Room gain assumed................................................................................................................................. 3 dB
Amplifier power required will be......................................................................................................... 25 W to avoid or minimize clipping during the peak demands.
Person B
Distance......................................................................................................................................................... 4 meters
Sound pressure level required.............................................................................................................. 84 dB/104 dB peak
Speaker specs.............................................................................................................................................. Same as Person A's
Room gain assumed.................................................................................................................................. Same as Person A's
Amplifier power required will be.......................................................................................................... 400 W
Now assume Person B's 400 W rated power amp's gain is lower........................................... 28 dB gain, that is sensitivity about 2.25 V
Using the above examples, assuming amplifiers with gain of about 30 dB such as your Rotel, then Person A will only need about 0.5 V pre-out voltage to satisfy his 25 W requirement, that's of course without any headroom consideration.
Person B will need almost 2.25 V to drive the 400 W power amp that has lower gain, to its rated output. That's just an example with make up numbers, you can experiment with an online calculator to see how much distance, SPL and speaker's sensitivity impact on one's power amp requirement.
And remember, the higher the power amp output, all else being equal, the higher the pre-out voltage you are going to need from you pre-amplifier.
Link to an online calculator:
https://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html
I hope this clears things up.