I see what you're driving at, but the NAD was a 304, four/five star amp at the time and the owner thought it was the mutts danglies, it must be, "What Hi-Fi?" had said so.  The Micromega was a Minim, and it's owner had bought it cheap from the local dealer beacuse they all but disappered.  The Micromega owner didn't know what he had really, and it wasn't that well known over here anyway, even then.  Hhands up all those who've seen a Minim, let alone listened to one!.  If anything I'd say the bias was the other way!!

Again I know what you're saying, the third amp was mine, an Audiolab 8000A mk2, the first one I owned, and it must be testamony to the utter cr@pness of the test system that they were all but indistinguishable from each other, or of course, they really are all the same  .  Either way, the Micromega owner and I expected the Audiolab to walk it, and the the Nad owner expected the NAD to win because 1) it was newer and 2) he was just like that!!  The Micromega may as well have had Alba written on it for all the Kudos it carried.

Cheers