The use of the term "ideological" in several places in this thread seems misplaced. Demanding that there be evidence from controlled experiments to show that a phenomenon might exist doesn't strike me as ideological. Grumpy, touchy, repetitive? Perhaps. Or perhaps where it becomes ideological would be if we considered others immoral to be subjectivists or attempted to organize society to eliminate it. I don't see that. Proselytizing? Perhaps. We do want to convert people, or, in our view, de-program them.
Conforming to a belief system without proper evidence is faith, or religion.
Religion is devotion to an observed practice, and isn't about faith, which is believing that which is not seen. Ideology is different from both.
If there is a philosophy difference, it's in the meaning of "musical" and "distorted". Subjectivists believe that pleasing distortions are not distortions, but rather musical enhancements. If these distortions are audible and pleasing, they might pass muster with controlled subjective testing (including blind testing), but they would still be distortions. Note that when it comes to empirical preference testing, we so-called objectivists are still doing subjective testing. We are testing opinions, not characteristics--that's what makes it subjective. Testing it in a way that separates the results from chance and sighted bias is what makes it controlled testing.
Most objectivists believe that only what the microphone heard (or what the musician and producer added as an intentional effect) is "music", and everything that changes that signal subsequently is "distortion". The ideological part is in the assumption that all distortion is
bad, whereas only the lack of distortion is
good. This is not an ideology that must be shared by objectivists. Of course, manufacturers often claim transparency while allowing or designing certain often-favorable distortions. Measurement reveals this strategy for what it is, but that doesn't mean some still won't prefer the sound of certain distortions.
The whole point of being objective is to inform users, which empowers them to do things on purpose rather than being a victim of a lack of information. What they choose to do with that information is up to them.
Rick "who doesn't mind if people prefer distortions, as long as they do it on purpose" Denney