mab1376
1000+ Head-Fier
You've spent plenty of time talking about the equipment you use but what is your methodology for subjective impressions. I mean there are plenty of people who will lament how objective measurements don't tell the whole story but never really give any information about how they conduct their own subjective impressions and the methodologies they follow to come to these conclusions.
You brought up food earlier and I think it's quite important to mention the extent that businesses go to conduct trials to rate subjective impressions of their own food products. Double blind testing is pretty much standard in other industries using selected groups of customers to ensure that they product products there are well liked. I'm sure you've seen how JBL conducts research into finding preferences in speakers.
The interesting thing in the audiophile world is that the engineers who design products don't follow these practices when pretty much every other industry has adopted them out of necessity.
There needs to be an industry standard baseline for everyone to reference.
x gear using y songs in z quality. not to mention environment variables such as dirty power and ambient noise, even temperature.
That way comparisons are done with gear and media that everyone is familiar with.
My saying my HE-500 are better than my HD650 doesn't do anyone any good unless they own or have tried an HD650 and are looking for an HE-500. But then again my amp/tubes/dac/power/temparature/cables/etc. are all variables.