Most people getting into the "audiophile hobby" doesn't know anything about the technical aspects of how headphones, amplifiers, dacs or cables work. Which is understandable - most people in general doesn't know anything about that. The issue is that when they start getting into the hobby, they are immediately exposed to a bunch of marketing claims, and other "more experienced" audiophiles, who already drank the kool-aid. They find this big community on here, on reddit and on other sites where people are having fun comparing their headphones, dacs and amps. People claiming this and that difference going from "entry level" to "mid-fi" to "summit-fi" and so on. Seemingly technical jargon being used, such as "effortless transients" and "resolving treble". I mean honestly, unassuming people trying to get into better sounding equipment has almost no chance because this environment online paired with psychoacoustics makes the "objectivists" look like cheap and jealous lunatics.
Consider that sound science and ASR is like niche level stuff five levels deep. First you hear about good sounding equipment from a friend, then you go read articles on "reputable" newspapers or similar, then on sound-specific ones like what-hifi. Then you go on to reddit and head-fi. Only if you scourge those sites for a long time will you even come across people talking about objectivism, and most likely it will be in a derogatory way. If you decide to follow the bread crumbs, you'll stumble upon sound science or ASR. Then you gotta hope you found it before sinking thousands of dollars into the "hobby", or at least that you're so aware of the power of bias that you can take the truth for what it is, and realize that what people are talking about on different forums are mainly bias and psychoacoustics at work.
I mean consider for a moment when someone, be it a journalist or a forum member, makes a review or "impressions" post on a piece of gear. Lets assume its a pair of headphones. His impression of its sound is almost 100% going to be more impacted by whether or not he got enough sleep that day, is in a good place mentally, if he's hungry or not, if he is in a totally quiet room, or if he has an annoying sun reflection hitting his eyes as he's listening. And whatever impression he got on his first listen will then impact his "opinion" on the equipment going forward. Not to mention what he read online, and what the "groupthink" has decided (Example: "Sennheiser veil"). I saw something really funny on reddit today. A guy had purchased the T2 DIY electrostatic amplifier (probably costing him in excess of 10,000 USD!). I clicked onto his profile, and he made some comments about some electrostatic headphones, and why he had decided against buying the latest and greatest from Stax. He explained that:
"Also I'm a bit on the fence with the X9000 after getting comment from a audiophile who owns the following OG Stax SRM-T2, OG Omegas and KGSSHV and complete set HE90 & HEV90. I notice he sold his X9000 and I ask him why. He told me "I only listen to it for 10 hours because I'm not impressed. I will not comment on this headphone in public and offend anyone but I think this headphone is somehow "boring" and "too-polite": too-tamed treble without sharp edges, a bit out-focus imaging, mediocre dynamic and bass make it unsuitable for rock and orchestral work, and very very hard to drive. I would expect headphones of this price range would be more all-rounded in genres. It is nothing like the omega. Even the 009/009s is more alike to the omega." So yeah after hearing that comment. I'm going to relax and when the chance comes to listen to the X9000 I won't make a rushed purchase."
I just had to laugh - the advice he had been given was likely influenced by 15 layers of bias, from different people reading endless posts online trying to justify their purchase or sale. This is the kind of stuff that sways him towards or away from purchases for 6-10k+USD!