Not a bad criteria, but to work the testing has to remove other factors - thus double blind. You can still test for the satisfaction you get...I admit it was not a “properly controlled double blind procedure”. I was more focused on the end result: the satisfaction I get listening to music using both systems.
There are, as has been pointed out, two significant phenomena that can explain your perceptions. One is expectation bias, the other is level (volume) difference,I was just trying to understand what’s really going on. When I see similar frequency response charts and similar multi tone charts and then ear two different things… something must be going on. What can it be? I don’t know. Could/should we do tests running small samples of real audio and try to measure the result? Maybe there are phenomena that we can’t detect measuring the way we do now.
As I keep saying, I wish I had $1 for each person who claims differences so clear no blind testing is required, but subsequently fail to hear a difference in a double blind test...No I didn’t. Not scientifically at least. But the difference between both systems with no EQ is so pronounced that it really is a no brainer. I would happily do a recording with proper level matching but I don’t have a good microphone (the best I have is maybe the iPhone).