In this hobby there seems to be an ideological divide between "Objectivists" viz a viz those who feel everything meaningful in an IEM's sound can be captured by measurements, and "Subjectivists" those who feel that the subjective consciousness from the listener can never be divorced from how and IEM or headphone will sound. I am reminded of the following quote by Emerson:
"As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final, and say, the senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances, and the animal wants of man; the idealist on the power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture. "
As for my own position...
In other news apparently the Watercooler is now officially #Supermoongang