I’m a music lover first and an audiophile second. For a long time this served me well, until we bought a house and moved from a flat. Prior to that I sat near field and I was happy listening to music. After moving to a much larger space the room became a huge part of the equation.
To that end, and to the point of the OP’s questions, I initially relied on my own subjective opinion. And I knew it didn’t sound right.
I needed new cables and power cords because of the changes in my equipment location, etc. So I tackled that first.
Next I knew my cartridge was long in the tooth. As part of the upgrade, I enlisted an expert to analyze my new cart and set up my table using math, science, physics and subjective criteria.
Then we moved on to the room and the main speaker interaction. Again, I went with the same expert who deployed a scientific, data-driven approach to optimizing the room as we did with the table. Ultimately, a combination of room treatments and a distributed bass array we’re deployed to optimize the sound. (I made other changes to isolation and cable/power cords.)
Essentially, through this process which took about a year, I have seen the light in terms of combining data and measurements with the subjective to get closer than I’ve ever been to musical nirvana. (Okay "nirvana" is a leap but you get the idea.)
I now have a rock-solid system built on data--starting at the source. My toes tapping is the subjective part that tells me, Eureka, that’s what a good-to-great stereo should sound like.
But I know there is more to get out of my system.
