Two Type of sound and listener preference are there more?

"I've noticed that small manufacturers are frequently arbitrary and a bit nutty. "

Yup.  Noticed this too.  Similar to obsessives who run smaller high end audio stores.

There was a guy who ran an audio store for a long time near me who had tons of strong opinions on everything, and how so many other audiophiles "just didn't get it" and "don't understand what music really sounds like" etc.  After listening to his strong opinions forever I finally had a chance to hear his own elaborate home set up, which purportedly was the result of all his insight.   It left me cold and unmoved.  But they think they are uncovering some Absolute, Objective Truth about how a system should sound.  It's a blinkered way of thinking.

BTW, I should add some caveats as far as my own thoughts.

I think there is a huge subjective aspect to the hobby as people are chasing different things, have different criteria, and for those chasing "realism" no system regularly produces sound indistinguishable from the real thing.  Hence, like the blind men and the elephant, we grab on to the parts of reality most important to each of us, and try to maximize this in our system.   But I don't think that rules out some objective truths about what people tend to prefer, or that some sound can't be more accurate and real.  Subjective preferences can be studied, and used for predictions, etc.

Secondly, I don't necessarily think the conversations between audiophiles, that remain in the subjective realm, are doomed to talking past one another due to pure subjectivity.  I think someone with good ears, experience with sound, and an ability to put into words what they are hearing, can have some hope of describing the characteristic of a certain hi fi system or speaker, with some accuracy.  I have found some reviewers are very good at this, insofar as when I hear the speaker in question it has very much the character the reviewer described (or alternatively, I may hear a speaker first, and then read the review later, and note how the reviewer really nailed the characteristics of the sound in his/her description).

When I was reviewing for a brief while, years ago, it was my mission to attempt this: to describe "what it sounds like to be sitting in front of these speakers" with enough specificity such that someone reading could get an idea of whether it would likely appeal to him or not.  (From reader feedback, it seemed I had some success, and I'm sure many reviewers get this as well).

So, yes it's obvious there is a heavy amount of subjectivity in this hobby.  But I don't think it is entirely insurmountable subjectivity, depending on what one wants to accomplish or establish through careful testing.

So, yes it's obvious there is a heavy amount of subjectivity in this hobby. But I don't think it is entirely insurmountable subjectivity

This ambiguity surrounding what is subjective/objective and how people react to it makes this hobby great for people watching.  There's no getting around the possibility that you are imagining something or that you'll find out that you were wrong about something.  For those of us that are just hobbyists this isn't usually such a big problem.  I think for those in the industry whose livelihood depends on it, it can be a big stressor.

You've got those who try to take advantage of it by selling snake oil.  What we've got here I think is someone who is very personally invested and who just can't handle the ambiguity so he pretends it isn't there.  

Thanks for your comments- I’ll keep this brief.

There are two types of listening:

• Analytic-- looking for defects, tone balance, image, special effects, distortions, ... a very long list. This is the style of listening used by studio engineers, stereo store proprietors, reviewers, editors, designers, and most home enthusiasts to ’make better sound’. A left-brain process, with no doubt.
  
  
• Subjective-- for enjoyment, for where the music takes you, what it makes you feel, think. Which is important for all of us listed above to be able to do.

After spending much time listening analytically, it can be difficult to switch that off, to kick back and enjoy whatever the music brings us, where it takes us. For listeners most impaired, the British remark, "They have ears of cloth."

I wrote my (and others) observation that a musical system makes its mark on a right-brained listener when playing any good music. From the top artists, we have:

Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is. Miles Davis

Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe. Douglas Adams

There’s music in the sighing of a reed; there’s music in the gushing of a rill; there’s music in all things, if men had ears. Their earth is but an echo of the spheres. Lord Byron

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. Gustav Mahler

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. Henry David Thoreau

Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same. John Denver

Music - The one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. Kahil Gabran

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. Plato

Best regards,
Roy

The adjective "musical" is likely the most hackneyed and abused audiophile buzzword ever.

You are completely right.
We are users of crazy machinery expected to generate any music on command over there, where we live. We don't want to hear any noise, nor any distortion or test tones. We want the sounds coming out to be musical sounds.

Those artists' views can be guides on what we should expect, to conceptualize where internally music might take us.  When the system can do it and when the listener can actually hear that. Two different subjects. Above, I proposed paths through these two difficult subjects.

Roy