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

Well for myself Im in the if its technically better it cant hurt crowd speaking broadly.

But fact is measurements that we currently have dont tell us anything about what something will sound like in our room.

Its entirely possible gear will sound the same in  a anechoic chamber I dont know but nobody listens to music in such a place.

Still what always bothers me is the techies saying x amount of distortion means its not audible.

So to what audible end when they find you cant hear say .01% distortion do they try to lower that tenfold -why?

Seem to me that if a product measure worse in a parameter than another its objectively worse based on that parameter.

But as I suggested before if one posits a given level of distortion is inaudible 

reducing that level of distortion a hundredfold cannot affect the audible experience

The measurement it important from the marketing and quality control standpoint of course.

To suggest a piece that measures worse cant sound good isnt sustainable after a minimum standard is met,

If you cd establish  level of distortion that is audible that might be helpful but wdnt necessarily mean the piece wd not sound  good

You wd need to be able to prove that an audible level of distortion was detectable to a large number of folk who wd independently agree it sounded bad to make the point 

And then you are back to listening test vs measurement no?