John, I don't think that Bernard meant to refer to the Audioholics test in connection with the 40 watt per channel figure. Gene DellaSala and his colleagues recognize the lack of reality in the "all channels driven" measurement and they report 1 and 2 channel numbers as being more in line with what is important in the home(as the experience you and Steve had with the 4600 also indicates). Bernard may have been thinking of the Secrets review which I linked about a week ago
here . As you'll note, Dr. Johnson measured 138 watts into 8 ohms with 2 channels driven(apparently meeting the 130 watt rating)and 38.3 watts with 5 channels driven. Despite a couple of slightly condescending remarks about "mass market" equipment and a couple of factual errors it was in general a favorable review. Subjective impressions aside, there's no good reason to suspect that the lab measurements weren't correct, within normal limits of measurement error and sample-to-sample variations. Of course, those results and the somewhat similar ones in S&V on the 74TXVi were met with near-hysteria on some other boards from those who would still demand that the full rated power be delivered simultaneously in all channels for 5 continuous minutes, despite the lack of relevance to home use.
