HI
Speaking from experience:
Confronted to these findings:
- That their hearing is mundane, downright ordinary.
- When blind (knowledge removed) and level-matched, they can't hear the up to then , "night and day" differences.
- That good electronics, sound for the most part the same.
- That past a $ 9.95 DAC, there is not much audible improvement
- That there is an objective reality to our preferences IOW, Science with great accuracy predict what we, humans will like in a sound system.
- That they pay stupid money for poor to no performance at all
- Related to the above, that good quality doesn't need to cost that much...
Subjectivist audiophiles reacted in two fashions:
They espouse the objective view of Audio and are liberated, spending much less and enjoying music more. Speaking form experience, my current best ever (50 + years as an audiophile) audio system cost less than my former "Reference" DAC. There is a lot of reformed-subjectivist in this forum... I am one of these.
or...
They continue their quest .. with lifting veils, lowering the "noise Floor", for galaxy-wide soundstage, cosmic-black background, etc,,, But they do, now, feel the pang , of suspecting that they are wrong.. What is left to do? Turn against the messengers, since they don't have any valid arguments to attack the messages. That deficit of arguments manifest itself by the subjectivists, the High End Audio industry in fact, recruiting some Scientists in a non-audio sector, to come up with some scientific looking "arguments" to perpetrate the BS and the money-grabbing. I know one audiophile, who when confronted with the painful reality that he could not hear any differences between cables, (this was an important experience for me too), reverted to this old ways... thereby maintaining and solidifying his guru-status, within his community.
They know they're losing the battle. It won't be without a fight however.
Peace.