Unlikely to be so, though if compared in a valid controlled way (accurately level matched with a multimeter - all devices operating within power envelope - and most importantly : blind.)Yeah, I understood that opinion the first time you stated it and I agree that the output chip and the op-amps pretty much define the performance of "All those amps...". IMO and FWIW, the question is: "For any particular use case, are those admittedly small differences you claim to hear significant enough for serious consideration?". In my case, no -- but YMMV and apparently does. Fair enough...
In other words the perceived differences are far more likely to be coming from human perceptive bias than any real performance differences between the designs mentioned.
