He has trotted this tale out on Stereophile and in multiple conferences and workshops where he has been privileged to hold the stage. All very well-meaning, just based on ignorance and misunderstanding of reality.
Sorry partner but I have to take exception with your conclusion here.
JA is well too intelligent and educated a man to have made this erroneous position by accident.
Strictly in IMHO, he purposely tells these stories to support the con being perpetrated on the audiophool community for the financial betterment of all involved. His continued position as Technical Editor helps to give some objective credence to his anti-blind rants, I mean "he must know what he's talking about) right? NOT
YMMV
Are you saying blind testing is a good way to evaluate over measured study?
Over measured study, no. If done properly it can be done along with measurement since the conclusions should be repeatable and scientifically accurate.
Like when the subjective audiophile makes the claim that he can hear things that we have not yet learned how to measure. A slightly possible position that could be proved correct or in error with a tightly bias controlled DBT. Although this claim has been repeated maybe millions of time now, AFAIK a test like this has never been properly done with the conclusions supporting their claims.
That's why JA and all the others in the subjective clan make the unsupported claim that DBT's are worthless, even though they have proven their worth in every other scientific endeavor.