What I think has created this whole seemingly false-dichotomy in the audio world is that there's no real, clear method of objectively conveying a subjective experience when listening to a recording through a piece of gear or multiple pieces of gear.
There are scientific methods for evaluating the sound quality of audio components.
Why do you think the audiophile industry largely supports "subjectivist" platforms/formats/outlets/reviews instead? Because there are enough gullible and uninformed consumers willing to give them money. Human hearing is much more limited than the mind. Pay for some high end reviews, get the hype rolling in some forums and you can sell even quite bad hardware for a fortune.
Ironically, audio fidelity is almost irrelevant to those audiophile customers, because they hear what they were told to hear.
And this is that grey, unexplored, ambiguous area where a lot of marketing and snake oil happens. There is, however, an objective way to reference a recording, and see if when you pump that signal through a series of gear, the result is anything like what you started with.
People have shown that some super expensive cables make zero audible difference in null-difference tests years ago. (You can do the same with any piece of digital/electronic gear.)
There's virtually zero grey or ambiguous area.
Do you think that would stop the manufacturer from selling these cables or gullible consumers buying them? It's obvious why the audio(phile) industry doesn't employ these methods and tests or work towards a universally accepted grading scheme.
Again, it's about everything other than actual high fidelity. $$$ first and foremost.
I think that focusing on objectivity gives us a good starting point though, for evaluating something as snake oil or not. For example, if there's a particular piece of gear that doesn't measure well, but a lot of people seem to enjoy listening to it, that gives us an important data point.
Yeah, primarily that human hearing sucks.
Having said all that, I like gear that measures well, because I think if I want to add distortion or effects to what I am listening to, that should happen at the time the recording is made or mastered. Because, mastering and recording techniques vary, but generally, audio reproduction equipment will always impart its own "signature" without prejudice, so it may indeed impart a quality that makes one recording better to my ears, but then it will impart that same quality to another recording that I know I like, but make me not enjoy it. Does that make me an objectivist?
The whole idea to reproduce the same sound as was produced during the recording is a complete joke in most cases. Audio quality varies significantly between albums/recordings.
Unless the artist chose the mics, positions, recording spaces, other recording gear and supervises the mixing and mastering process, you got a plethora of variables that all vary from one recording to the next.
Sure, the artist says "good enough" at some point, but it's a bit like showing a painter a processed image of his painting and selling that instead of the painting.
Just a different mic model or slightly different positioning would cause larger differences than the differences between a good and a perfect DAC, amp.
I acknowledge that there are measurable distortions or inaccuracies that can increase the listener's subjective experience, but again, it's not what I have set out to do when piecing together a listening system. I try to go by what fits in my budget and measures well, but ultimately, I listen to whatever I can before I buy it. So, in my own system, I have gear that didn't measure well here, objectively, but sounded pretty good when I listened to it using recordings I am familiar with and it fit my budget. But, I always use the reviews and information I gather here as a starting point.
It probably doesn't translate/matter because of masking and a host of uncontrolled variables in your listening circumstances.
