I am a Cognitive Psychologist and have spent most of my career measuring peoples' sensory and emotional responses to products. The aim has been to validate Marketing brand intent as well as to inform designers and engineers of possible gaps between design intent and actual human perceptions and emotions. More important, though, is that I can also determine how to manipulate physical qualities of products to close any gaps.
In this area it is important to realize that there are actually two fundamentally different types of perception. One is descriptive in natyure and has to do with the physical properties of products, i.e., force, texture, color, shape, acoustics, smell, taste, etc. In this domain manufacturers typically use trained experts to describe products because the typical person either lacks the sensory accuity to detect subtle phsyical properties of products, or the vocaulalry to describe them. A wine connoiseur is an example.
However, a wine connoiseur can't tell you if you will like any particular wine. So, manufacturers also measure the perceptions of typical consumers. But, here, a different vocabulary is required, one with more subjective words such as "like", "prefer", "pleasing", etc. Indeed, psychological reasearch shows that the perception of typical people requires four bipolar dimensions of meaning to adequately describe: a) Valence (good/bad), b) Potency (strong/delicate), c) Arousal (intense/mild) and d) Novelty (familiar/unique). I have used rating scales designed to measure these four dimensions in many product develpment projects (including acoustics) and can literally provide engineering requirements for desired livels of each perceptual dimension.
My point is that you have to decide what your deign goal is. If it is to replicate reality then you might need something like an audio connoiseur to describe the physical qualities of the output sound in relation to a live sample. But, an enjoyable sound from the standpoint of listening pleasure might not be veridically accurate. More and more I find I just want to enjoy the music and not worry about whether it sounds veridically "real". So, do you "like" your stereo or not. I would start there.