Probably the #1 lesson that an audiophile can learn is that they are susceptible to bias.There is a difference between entertaining illusion, and selling snake oil, and being in a conscious audiophile history of articulate evolutive bias toward this goal: being more happy with our own listening experience ...Most audiophiles exist precisely with this" label name" because they are in a search history, and not in a so-called mission to eliminate all bias, but only the disruptive one for their own history, not the creative one, and this occur in their own personal history of cumulative articulated bias ...We always listen with our bias, but they are the good one and the bad one...
"Listening without bias" is not only impossible, this is the most difficult illusion to erase, a bad one indeed...And this illusion is not only the disease of "audiophile", but of " scientist" also...
By the way you speak like if being an audiophile was a tare or a disease of the mind, most audiophile are conscious that they are susceptible of bias, being audiophile is precisely that, cultivating some bias, eliminating some bias...It is an history or a life...Not a piece of engineering...
Most audiophile want to learn, but no audiophile will erase his own personal history of listening, and exchange that for an "illumination" by some " scientist" ...We must be respectful of facts and persons...
By the way all people vote for the virtue, and all are in favor of tests , blind one also, to eliminating blatent snake oil products, and that goes without saying...This is one thing, but it is another one to attack audiophile personal bias history, and calling that an" illusion".... All illusions are not the same, a rainbow is not a cable in the night perceived to be a serpent...In the kingdom of illusions there is the creative one and the disruptive one...