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Perhaps the question could be rephrased: at what point does noise and distortion fall below the threshold of audibility?
The entire point of electronic measurement is to set a standard.https://www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/speech-intelligibility-demo
I'm curious what my previous Yamaha entry AVR was, as I wasn't able to hear any difference between it and a near SOTA Nord Hypex amp under blind conditions. Same thing with the other listeners.
If I had to guess, I'd say anything beyond -70dB or so is equivalent to my ears. If you can get to -70dB, you get 10/10 for distortion performance. After that I'd be looking to compare max output, ability to handle tough loads, frequency response(usually 10/10), fan noise, and price.