Care to provide data on why you don't think a little test with amps similar to the one above would not yeild the same results with people's perception of what they are hearing? There's a point in most markets where prestige pricing takes over from common sense and it prohibits people from objectively viewing/listening to something. It's funny to me how people with the big expensive $20,000 setups and components will argue all day that their stuff justifies the price.
I don't want math or scientific research on why 10K is better then $600, I want to hear peoples opinion without them being biased on what the source is. I would venture to guess that it would be very hard for people to distinguish them, all other things being equal in the setups.
I suspect there are too many variables here to do an honest test. To do it right, you need to use quality components in the rest of the test setup. It would be unfair to do this with cheap speakers, as the speakers themselves would limit the test results. Yet, better speakers tend to be less efficient, so the cheap amplifier might not be able to drive the speakers before going into oversaturation, thus distortion. Amplifiers and speakers really do need to be matched, and I doubt that anyone would propose a test with a $600 amp driving $600 worth of speakers be compared with a $20k amp driving $20k worth of speakers. There is also the factor of whether we are talking about strictly the amplifier, or are including the pre-amp switching and signal processing as well.
I will definitely agree that there is a point where one-upmanship takes over from common sense. I also expect it is different for different people.
I would have also supported this, if you were talking about DVD players or anything that passes a digital audio signal.