For practical purposes I would say it is more or less a commodity.... I had been to many so called high end dealers and trade shows that demo their expensive systems including amps and speakers that cost >50K each and when I returned home to listen my own I was not disappointed at all. In fact, unless one has rooms comparable to those high end demo rooms, one ought to be happier with their own gear in their medium size rooms.
That's just me, I know others seem to truly believe they heard better sound quality if they spend more on their processors even when it is very obvious they were affected by all sorts of bias and the really powerful Placebo effect. One example, if you ever visit the AVSF Anthem AVM/AVR thread you will see that many opted for the AVM90 that is listed at double the price of the AVM70 felt the 90 sounded so much better that pretty much implied unless one is deaf, one would hear the much better sound quality for $3000 to $4000 when the two has virtually the same specs and ought to perform equally the same to humans if used for something like 7.1.6, even the RC system is identical. But no, even my respected Theo and Gene (probably not Gene actually..) would seem so strongly believe what they heard was real and yet I don't believe he tried and pass any credibly done DBT.
Unless someone can link me to some credible source that includes blind listening test results, I would continue to believe AVPs/AVRs at the midrange price points, such as your X4800H can be treated as "commodity" that one can just choose based on specs, measurements, feature sets for real world use. Now once you get into aesthetic, matching furniture, rooms, user friendliness, expandability, even visible build quality etc., then of course it is a different story. Say if I have too much money I would get something else than my AVM70 lol.. Still, I might then just grab an AV10 but not one of those 25-35K Trinnov, as those things would likely drive me nuts trying to set it up to my satisfaction so it's not about money, it's about being lazy, avoidance..., too old for serious toys like those.
