"Well, there's no need to be mean about it."

Ok. Sorry. I don't mean to be flat out rude to you, but I am ticked off that you continue to not catch my points though I repeat them over and over again.

"I'm sincerely interested in this, but I've already proven to myself how unreliable my ears can be.-"

Forget about hi-end audio if your ears don't work right. I'm betting you just haven't heard the right equip. though, but maybe you do have bad ears. I don't know.
No point in wasting money on audio then. Find a new hobby, or concentrate on the video end of your HT.

"-Without going into the painful details I accidentally performed a blind(ish) test on myself and pretty much impressed the power of expectation upon myself.-"

Lemme guess.. you thought you hooked up something new, but the old thing was still hooked up and you 'thought' you heard a diff.?

"-So to be sure I need proof. I know I can't trust my ears in sighted listening and I can't run a good DBT (time, patience, etc) so what I need are measurements."

NO, you DON'T need measurments. You need to HEAR an amp make an improvement or not make one -and NOT in a blind test, and if you don't hear a diff. then you don't hear it end of story.
What you hear is the ONLY goal.

I can't believe you just can't grasp this simple point!? And I'm sorry that I sound so rude again, but damn... it's just so simple, and you just don't get it.

If you tricked yourself into hearing a diff. when nothing in your system changed, I'm sure the diff. you thought you heard was subtle at best. I'm guessing after this 'event' you don't trust you ears anymore. This is not the right attitude unless you have actual hearing damage.

"Get back on the horse" so to speak.

As I said, this eAR amp in NOT a subtle diff. And for it's price it shouldn't be. If it's not 'slap you in the face' obviously better than your previous amp then I'd say it's not worth it's high price compared to so-so sounding, value priced solid state amps.

Say two amps sound the same to you, yet one measures WAAAAY better. SO WHAT!?? Why would you even care???? You'd be a fool to spend far more money on the better measuring high end amp if it didn't sound any diff. to you.

"Any audible improvement is measurable. The trick is knowing what to measure."

Yes... in theory. As I and others have said already the limited 'spec sheets' don't tell all.
Remember my point (I've already made here) stating that there's probably some elements of the audio that just aren't measurable by any lab equip. yet clearly exist when you hear them.

This is all irrelevant though for the above stated reason.

You can't test/measure every element of the human brain as a processor, memory storage system, etc..., but we know that it has incredible performance 'specs' none-the-less, and I'd rather be wired to the one in my noggin over any motherboard/hard-drive on the market.

I can explain why in general terms, but I can't give you the exact 'specs' why though.

"I want to know what I should measure, what the high end guys have fixed."

Pointless.

Such testing is of no use to you in 'listening to music or your home theater'. It's helpful if you're actually designing an amp, but you aren't.

"I'm interested enough to spend considerable $$$ on test equipment ($1000-$6000) but I'm not going in without specific goals. Without goals nothing gets done."

Yes. And you have no goals, and that's why you're doing nothing. You're in this goofy 'Catch 22' with yourself that will prevent you from doing anything. It's very very sad.

You'll spend lots of money on lab equpitment to do tests that don't exist, once someone tells you what they are.

Amazing logic.

Yet you won't spend this money on the amp I've mentioned that's far better than the solid state amps you've heard. It's returnable if you don't find it to sound better.
The risk is almost nothing -esp. compared to buying lab equip. that will do nothing audio-wise other than drain your future audio budget.

I REALLY find it hard to believe that you're all fired up to spend thousands on lab equip. (once someone tells you what to measure), but you're totally unwilling to spend the same amount on the refundable amp that the lab equip. would be meant to test!