I Just Know It's BS ... But I Have't Tried It Yet

Our ears - to my mind - are the worst of "test instruments" to judge a given system, but it is the only one we have. It takes a long learning curve to come to trust what you hear.
To get there, you must have developed at least some sense for your inner preferences, your emotional state in a given moment as well of course, just to mention two outer factors, the weather condition and the state your electrical grid is in. Apart from that, to listen as objectively as possible, I feel one should strive for the same state of mind, as FREUD told us as desirable, when listening to his patients: A free floating attention, a state of inner calm, wanting nothing, expecting nothing.
Good listening is as difficult as ZEN. (:

Sorry. I think I was unclear: I meant critical listening, not listening for pleasure. But then if the music lover becomes an audiophile, critical listening always creeps in and often enough spoils all the fun...........

01-05-15: Detlof
Sorry. I think I was unclear: I meant critical listening, not listening for pleasure.

Indeed! Listening should be for pleasure!
Critical listening isn't necessary unless you're able to analyze quality of musician performing challenging pieces.

Critical listening of equipment often destroys your focus to the music quality and not at all important in most of cases. Your test record may show certain improvements on certain passages after your new modifications to the system, but the rest may sound just the same or even worse(you never know unless you're so obsessed!).

Just enjoying and being able to listen to music is z best.

I keep a very pretty crystal bowl on the top of my nuclear hot performing new passive preamp (review at Dagogo.com to come soon), and to invoke the potential of upgraded sound I stir the glass rocks inside, which I will call "Quantum Glass Rocks", with my hand before every listening session. You just don't know when a better "formation" of rocks will happen - just to make sure I'm getting the most out of the preamp. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Despising such tweaks is an "irrational approach to high end audio," and a "phenomenon", eh?
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really, a lot of exclamation points add greatly to a thread, the way "quantum" products add to a system. ;)

In all seriousness, I will be more than happy to build my reviewing reputation upon eschewing such tweaks. I'm not into marginal improvements, but serious gains in performance.

I like it when people who talk about tweaks I do not understand demonstrate knowledge of related things I know more about as well. That gives them more credibility with me in terms of understanding the big picture at least.

When people talk about a tweak alone, if I do not understand it, then there is no basis to give any benefit of doubt.

Its all about credibility pretty much for me. There has to be something you can sink your teeth into initially to help justify spending ones time or money.

THat does not mean there may not be something to whatever trick of the day is being discussed, only that there is nothing concrete there for me that I can sink my teeth into. Others might feel differently. If so, hopefully they would shre their unique knowledge and help others like me learn.