If I dare...
I'm pretty convinced the science is the way to go.
The way we want to go, anyway, because it provides a lot of relief to be able to objectively and repeatably measure what's 'good enough' for our ears... and therefore allow us to optimize costs, effort and, ultimately, cool down our fear to have made a wrong choice.
When we hear bad recording, that's because the recording is bad. Not our system.
But, I'm 57. I started to have an interest in sound reproduction when I was 17. That's 40 years.
During that period, I've always wanted to trust figures to tell me if the sound would be good. Unfortunately, and now we seem to know why, this was mainly (marketing) bullshit, for most of this time.
So, how did we proceed?
Train our ears and try to listen as far as we could to make choices.
Is that the way to go?
Well, what else did we have at hand?
Magazines? Reviews? Sales guys' advices? (I've been one myself, when I was 23-24, and I did as honestly as I could, but I've always been aware of the limits of my knowledge)
Double blind test is, for sure, the best, and probably only, way to make educated choices and to correlate hearing and measurements.
But that's not something we, simple people, can afford. (Except, maybe, to compare MP3 to WAV or some other source-level hypothetic difference).
And, in my opinion, for a blind test to be really valid, one has to suppose that all the other components of the chain are 'perfect'.
Otherwise, if you end up saying there is no difference, isn't the difference actually masked by another component's weakness?
And what becomes of your conclusion when, ultimately, this component is improved?
Also, for budget components (I dont speak about DACs and sources, but more about amps and loudspeakers), none is perfect.
That means that, ultimately, you'll have to make choices between pest and cholera. Isn't everybody's choice and taste different then?
I remember Paul Messenger writing that he'd always picked a sensitive, dynamic loudspeaker, over a flat but lazy one, if he had to choose.
So, the quest, for objectivists, should be, in my opinion, to always challenge the measurements.
Because, ultimately, we want to be able to trust them.
Not to be biased by 'subjectivists', but to systematically try to find a measurenent that could show a difference where subjectivists say there is one.
That could be statistical analysis (and, yes, maybe weight and color play a game).
And if there is no actual difference, to be able to demonstrate it.
But dont systematically shoot those guys (unless they say there is no truth in measurements or scientific method at all).
Some of them are probably actually honest in their quest.
Just check if you can measure a difference... or not.