Totally Ridiculous....Auditions on YouTube!

Its not ideal but I think its useful to see if you can hear relative differences between two components in the same video. It’s not going to give you an absolute impression of how each component sounds but rather a relative comparison between the two.

Someone above posted an example of taking a photo of two colors with a cellphone and then sending them to someone and asking them which one is better.  I would say thats not the correct analogy.  The proper analogy would be to take a picture with your cellphone of two different colors of white... lets take Benjamin Moore "White Dove" and then Benjamin Moore "Chantilly Lace" and then sending them to someone to ask which one they like better.  Both of these colors are white.  However, White dove has a tiny bit of black and yellow in it, and Chantilly Lace has a tiny bit of Black and Blue in it.  Seeing them on their own they look like white... however in a cell phone picture side by side you can definitely see the difference. Now, can you tell from those pictures how each of those colors will look in a room, probably not.  However if you know you want a "cool" white rather than a "warm" white and you want to know the relative difference between the two then the cellphone picture can do that.

How is this still be debated? The fact that you can hear differences is not the issue. What underlying reasons could there be....?🤔

It is all noise, nothing but....just like with pictures and colors on your monitor.

lol! Never mind that professional photographers use their (yes, typically well-calibrated) computer monitors to process and fine tune their images prior to printing.

Whipsaw...Com'on Man!...You know the difference. The Photographer is "One on One".......Same as a musician mixing a recording on his computer with his monitors right there in front of him......The Photographer isn't using a Micky Mouse camera to send a photo over the internet through who knows what routers and who knows what receiving monitor , for a real time appraisal....

@rbertalotto 

You're missing the point. The poster made a very poor analogy.

But I have also previously linked to a speaker video that is very well recorded, and does indeed give a good feel for the quality of the component. Of course a fair comparison would require that both components are equally well recorded, etc. But it absolutely is possible to glean valuable insights from such videos.

Would I suggest buying on that basis alone? Of course not! But for that matter, it can even be treacherous to purchase on the basis of an in-person audition at a dealer, as the room and or associated components may produce a very different sound.