Are you really excluding all sources of information other than your ears, or are you listening with your ears, your eyes, and your background knowledge, beliefs and expectations?
Like everyone here, i am listening with my ears and interpreting what I hear with my brain. That is all I can do...and it is good enough for me. If you don't trust your own ears --and your experience with 'live' music and how it should sound, well what can i tell you, LOL.
This is not a fair criticism IMHO. Amir is someone who has tested his hearing more rigorously than almost anyone I know of, and who as a result knows a huge amount about his own hearing ability.
This is not a criticism, it is an observation.
This may be because your initial gut reaction was correct, but at the same time it reads like textbook example of expectation bias. You can find out by only one means...
Expectation bias can work in many ways...do you seriously believe that all measurements are infallible?