I don't want to beat a dead horse but I'm bugged.

Atmasphere has numerous posts about amplifier harmonic distortion and listener perception.  Simply stated, vanishingly low harmonic distortion is not necessary.  The harmonic spectrum and linearity of the distortion are more important.  So whether THD is .001% or a hundred times greater is pretty irrelevant.  Clearly measurements matter, it's just that the most commonly cited amplifier measurements aren't the most important regarding sound quality.

IMO a well designed amplifier should both measure well and sound good.

But isn't there enough gear that measures reasonably well and sounds pretty good that we can move on from poorly measuring equipment regardless of how it sounds?

Rather than measures well, let's substitute reliability.  Just for this example high reliability equipment works as designed every time and low reliability equipment only works 50% of the time.  So wouldn't you want to move on from the equipment that has low reliability yet sounds superb?

Why can't you have your cake and eat it too?

@charles1dad I would take product A all other things being equal.

The fact that one component can measure better than another isn't the point of my earlier comment.  I believe audiophiles should not have to accept poorly measuring equipment.  The tube equipment that I see measured in Stereophile actually measure fairly well.  As a group they don't measure as well as the majority of solid state amps, but it's not as if they don't have good measurements.

@russ69 I didn't say the measurements have to be great, they can just be good.  Good is more than acceptable.

There must be some kind of way out of here...

There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief...