Good to remember ... how to tell what sounds better

Russ, the industry simply wants to sell you stuff. Like I said, sometimes the differences are outstanding and it is easy to choose over a relatively short period. Outstanding differences I can usually discern at the store and at isolated listening sessions. Fine details are not so easy especially with differences in recordings and program sources. After listening to a speaker for a while you accommodate to the sound. Most people think this is the equipment breaking in. It is not. It is your brain breaking in. This is a reality of science whether anyone here like it or not. Certain defects like an irritable upper midrange will persist but I usually can pick this up at first listening. Go to a dealer that can arrange rapid AB comparisons of speakers and see how easy it is to pick out differences between speakers that you would not pick out otherwise. 

When I'm evaluating gear I like to spend some "quality time" listening to item A, then some "quality time" listening to item B.

From 1978 thru 1982 I worked in high end audio shops in the DC area.  It was common to be able to A/B speakers, but at one of the shops we had this "computerized" console, where you could A/B amplifiers, and it was "programmed" to set the volumes equal.  I remember a customer spending HOURS A/Bing a McIntosh MC2205 solid state power amp vs. a Luxman Laboratory Reference tube unit, switching back and forth causing the "computerized" console to illuminate one lamp for the McIntosh, the other for the Luxman.  After HOURS of listening, he bought the Luxman.  A few days after he left the store, our head repair tech came into our high end room and replaced the motherboard in the unit, saying that though the unit switched from one lamp to the other, it was not actually switching from one amp to another...so this customer was probably listening all the time to the McIntosh.

"There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind"
 - Duke Ellington
Just as I'd rather drive a slow car fast, than a fast car slow, I'd rather listen to good music on a bad system, than bad music on a good system.

1+ widmerpool.

@widmerpool 
@mijostyn 

life is short, why settle?  the idea is to listen to great music on a great system