Sorry, late to this conversation. The first thing I noticed is that the OP has seemed to confuse the loudness difference between 40 watts output and 100 watts output. Some folks might think that 100 watts will be more than twice as loud as 40 watts (by comparing 40 to 100). That is not how audio...
This is mostly a "hello" post. I won't bore you with minute details about me except that I have been interested in recording since I was in my single digits. In the late 1970s, I started recording live concerts for money. Back then, my equipment was rudimentary and cheap (think Radio Shack...