09-14-12: Rok2id
'Once you stack them side by side with great stuff though, you can hear the deficiencies.'
Only if you can see the equipment, will you be able to 'hear' the imagined differences / deficiencies. Put everything out of sight and NO ONE can tell or hear a difference. Not wanting to revisit this 'sensitive' subject, except that there might be new people here who do not know the history of blind testing. I am primarily speaking of electronics.
You have to be joking. I don't have to see what amp is hooked up to know what it sounds like. Out of sight, out of mind... LOL.
A lot of blind testing was done with a strange system, and in a strange environment. That "Carver Challenge" years back, would have had totally different results if it was done in their home, and using their own system, in my opinion.