edelbrock heads

any truth to the theory aluminum bleeds heat off better and requires
higher compression to make the same power an iron head makes?

No, but if your motor required 93 octane (or better) gas, and you still had knocking sometimes, it will go away with the aluminum heads. And you might even get away with cheaper gas, I put OOB Eddys on my 340 about 5 years ago, and never had one problem with them.