@snilf
"To put the question succinctly: How can you hope to persuade me of any particular claim to audiophilic excellence without appealing to some "objective" criteria that, because they claim to be "objective," are more than just a subjective preference? What, in short, is the point of reading all these posts if not to come to some sort of conclusion about how to improve one’s system?"
As I wrote in a paragraph of my profile description (and because I don’t like repeating myself with a reformulation):
"I don’t acknowledge sound perception as such being subjective, it’s rather about the aspects of what we hear that we prioritize."
Put a bunch of people in a concert hall witnessing a performance of some symphony, and let’s imagine - for the sake of the argument - that each one of them will get to experience the concert from the same seating position with the concert being appropriately repeated (to quench any "but they weren’t seated the same place"-arguments), and then from an outset of carte blanche have them "recreate" that concert by putting together a stereo system + acoustic locale with a reproduction that to their ears most closely emulates said concert. We’d likely have a wild variety of sonic outcomes from the different systems, even via differently sized listening rooms, and yet let’s remember they attended the same concert. And that’s just assuming, again, that their reference is similar and that they even care about the best ways to most closely reproduce or replicate it.
In reality and as an example some prefer sitting rather close to the orchestra, others further behind; this, at least as a singular aspect, will have a lot to say about the way someone orients themselves in putting together a stereo system, and also how far they may be placed from the speakers and in how big a room.
Then again I’d imagine many if not most aren’t really interested in recreating a live acoustic event in the first place (or any other type of musical event with the intention of using as a reference in assembling and implementing one’s own setup) - it’s more about something centered around itself, dictated also by possible spousal demands, economy, the time one wants to invest in this hobby, preconceived ideas, etc.
It should follow that the context of people and what forms their incentives in this endeavor varies a lot, and hence finding a point of reference here for one to follow (looking for inspiration) can be tricky. Your premise above rests on the assumption that reading through forum posts is a with the goal of improving one’s own stereo setup, and as such I can imagine why you’d want some "hard intel" to go by and not fluffy pie-in-the-sky assertions. In the end though I gather anyone claiming to be from the "objective" camp will either need to ground their empirical findings (i.e.: measurements, data, theory) with listening evaluations (or so I hope) as a means to challenge these findings, or they don’t place much faith in the human hearing (a shame, I find) which is then effectively downplayed and replaced by a sound-by-number approach.
What is objective criteria, and how would we even agree on it? I guess it’s mostly a matter of getting your hands dirty and start persuading yourself.
