Mike, in a true blind A/B tests, those theories go right out the window.
Mike, welcome to the forum!
<rant>
There seem to be two camps on this forum - those who say that basically all amps sound the same, and those who say that "Amps ain't amps". I'm in the second camp. I suspect that companies like Bryston would also be, along with thousands of testers in thousands of magazines.
I think it's an oversimplification to say that any amp with a flat frequency respone and low THD sounds that same as another other amp. I'm sure some amps do sound the same, but there are a lot of them out there. I don't want to get into an argument about it but I shake my head every time I hear it.
</rant>
I still love this forum though - and I don't even own any Axioms
