That article was discussed here earlier.
Certainly the article is packed with stuff the ASR crowd will find cringy. And it no doubt contains some dubious technical ideas.
But ultimately it's a writer trying to put his experience with new audio gear in to language...which is what writers (and humans) do.
One theme is it documents the writer's grappling with the idea of what does one want out of a sound system? He wrote about how, as someone who also made records:
"You shape the material you have to make it do what you need it to. The idea of anything being “natural” or “accurate” in the field of recorded music made no sense to me."
He wondered what is the "more" that some audiophiles are looking for with their audio gear.
Basically his article seemed to me to document his journey from the mind set of not really expecting too much from a recording...beyond the basic sonic information contained about any recording...to experiencing how much more life-like sound reproduction can seem. So along the way he hears about some of the attributes some audiophiles are seeking, e.g.:
"When the audio critic Herb Reichert hears this quality in good speakers, he calls it “believable corporeality,”
Eventually the writer reports experiencing just something like that, when listening to music through the big horn system:
"One day, I brought Weiss a copy of Comet Meta, a record by David Grubbs and Taku Unami that features the sound of two electric guitars playing at relatively low volume. When we put the vinyl through his Imperia speakers, we heard the guitar lines ring and hang and interlock—and then something else happened. I felt a presence, as if someone had entered the room. The music had become a concrete experience. I don’t mean that I could see the musicians, but that the people in the music, and of the music, were with me."
He experienced a system producing a type of "life energy" from the musicians that he wasn't used to hearing, or even expecting could be part of listening to a stereo system. And it had a big effect on him. Good for him!
As you note, part of this article also has to do with grappling with language in describing sound. He's a writer with a new experience to express. And I enjoyed his attempt to put his experience in to words. And on the theme of the worthiness of putting experience in to words, in whatever domain:
It would be awfully impoverishing to de-legitimize or dismiss the worth of language and it's role in humans trying to communicate experiences and impressions to other humans. Who would want to dismiss literature from James Joyce (or name any other great authors), simply because they were using the imprecision of language, "Listen James, give us what you are trying to describe in measurements or don't bother, thanks!" How impoverished it would be to describe to one another the sensation and characteristics of a great meal, or cooking a recipe, or a sunset, or a concert, piece of music etc, only in terms of chemicals and physics, utterly missing the subjective phenomena.
Some here will roll their eyes at an article discussing audio in purely descriptive terms. But I enjoy it. Measurements can surely be enlightening about what is happening technically, but to know what this means perceptually, we need to (or can) put things in to language. There is no reason to treat the phenomenon of sound as inherently siloed in to technical language. Sound, like everything else, produces subjective experience. Audio gear doesn't just "measure like X or Y" it also "Sounds LIKE X,Y, Z" once you play music through the system. The subjective perception it produces is ultimately the point, and humans discussing "what this sounds like" "what type of experience this produced for me" is natural, normal, often informative and...fun...(unless perhaps one has some intrinsic discomfort with the imprecision of language and prefers numbers to descriptions).
As to the poor writer being misled by Steve G in to buying those Klipsch speakers...the writer seems utterly thrilled, and finds that they produced for him something like the thrill he had discovered in the bigger horn speakers. Could he be educated out of liking them and preferring something else? I suppose. But frankly I'm happy for him that he is thrilled with music through his new system. I mean, I could try to educate my son out of being happy with the sound of youtube music coming from his laptop. But when I see him dancing around and singing along happily...I re-consider why I would be compelled to do that