I didn't say I didn't have a significant increase in SQ, just I feel the differences were not worth the costs involved.
The A1400 did play alot louder and cleaner at these levels
No big surprise there. I found the bass was more defined/stronger at nearly all listening volumes and the highs were much more like the 3808 is when I have Audyssey on but better, more blended with the entire sound than what Audyssey affords, it is very hard to describe. Yet when I listened at onn's house I noticed no differences, so it could have been my room dynamics making a difference some how.
I noticed you mentioned a bit about car audio. Just remember with car audio you have a small amount of space to fill with sound so a few hundred watts would be equivalent to a few thousand watts for home audio. I highly suspect very few of us, if any, are willing to spend that kind of money on amps to achieve the same watt/volume efficiency level.
Maybe if you sit 3-4' from the speakers with a major toe in setting you might be able to achieve a similar sound
