claim to audiophilic excellence without appealing to some "objective" criteri
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Exactly, w/o a objective stat, its impossible to say which is superior to another. The only criteria i consider in speaker selection is based on sensitivity. Which is why I have dual FR speaker system, FR at 92db-95db, always out performs any and all woofer/tweeter system. Higher sens makes superior fidelity.
All your box speakers are below 91db. And if the manufacturer claims above 92 db, they are lying. There is no box speaker in the world above 92db. vs FR which are most all above 92db. = FR will always outperform a box speaker Every single time, Due to higher sensitivity.
Took me 40 yrs to figure this out, But via resaerch and lots of $$$$$$ I got the answer. My dual FR + T's cost me $1200, vs Wilson's $$$$$$. Spending $$$$$$$ will not give you high fidelity. ONly sensitivity can make fidelity.
objective vs. subjective rabbit hole
There are many on this site who advocate, reasonably enough, for pleasing one’s own taste, while there are others who emphasize various aspects of judgment that aspire to be "objective." This dialectic plays out in many ways, but perhaps the most obvious is the difference between appeals to subjective preference, which usually stress the importance of listening, vs. those who insist on measurements, by means of which a supposedly "objective" standard could, at least in principle, serve as arbiter between subjective opinions.
It seems to me, after several years of lurking on and contributing to this forum, that this is an essential crux. Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective preference, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices? Or is there some middle ground here that I’m failing to see?
Let me explain why this seems to me a crux here. Subjective preferences are, finally, incontestable. If I prefer blue, and you prefer green, no one can say either of us is "right." This attitude is generous, humane, democratic—and pointless in the context of the evaluation of purchase alternatives. I can’t have a pain in your tooth, and I can’t hear music the way you do (nor, probably, do I share your taste). Since this forum exists, I presume, as a source of advice from knowledgable and experienced "audiophiles" that less "sophisticated" participants can supposedly benefit from, there must be some kind of "objective" (or at least intersubjective) standard to which informed opinions aspire. But what could possibly serve better as such an "objective standard" than measurements—which, and for good reasons, are widely derided as beside the point by the majority of contributors to this forum?
To put the question succinctly: How can you hope to persuade me of any particular claim to audiophilic excellence without appealing to some "objective" criteria that, because they claim to be "objective," are more than just a subjective preference? What, in short, is the point of reading all these posts if not to come to some sort of conclusion about how to improve one’s system?