I see your point regarding level matching as it seems that would also affect the amps and distortion and overload conditions and every other aspect of reproduction. Is that the sum total of what they mean here though? The couple of papers I have encountered this mentioned it was used to describe quality issues as the variable while the operating conditions were held stable; that is the part I found curious. Looking at Mr Vinyls link they say for instance that humans hear Pitch Distance in a logarithmic fashion, ie the distance between 100hz and 150hz sounds the same as the difference between 1000hz and 1500hz. One article mentions transient overload in the output stage of a PP amp and conditions that skewed the AB results. Just something to mull over. Looks interesting though.