Like pcrhk mentioned earlier, these forums are a means for us all to have the freedom of just calling things as we see them or hear them, like an umpire calling balls and strikes. We're just generally doing it in essay form. rather than true-false or positive-negative, and doing it with regards to a/v equipment, room acoustic treatments and source content and with price/ performance ratios baked in.
An umpire improves his performance through knowledge and experience, an accurate knowledge of the strike zone and the experience of seeing many pitches, closely examining each pitch's qualities and worthiness, before rendering his decision based on the merits.
Hmmm, grasshoppers, perhaps the essence of being an audiophile or videophile is very much like being an umpire? Of course, we're not all reliably objective umpires since we each have varying levels of knowledge of the audio and video strike zones as well as personal and subjective factors that influence our judgment decisions. Factors such as general audio/video performance characteristic preferences as well as preferences for specific component technology types and even brands tend to skew judgments from objective and toward subjective, much like a bribe tends to skew an umpire's judgments to be less objective.
Experience is important for gaining a good understanding of the performance capabilities of currently available technology, equipment and source content. It also allows one to compare and contrast the performance levels of available a/v equipment, room acoustic treatments and source content based on their own merits.
I continue to believe mahlman's premise on this thread is misguided, unnecessarily exclusionary, irrelevant and possesses absolutely zero intrinsic value. However, I also believe a thread premise, about what qualities an effective and competent audiophile or videophile should ideally possess, would constitute a reasonable, inclusive, relevant and valuable endeavor.
Unfortunately, I consider myself as an a/v, HT and music enthusiast and lack the motivation, interest and time to do so. Just calling them like I see, hear or double-naught figure them.
Tim