I have alluded to this in previous posts, but will restate it here. There is a profession called Sensory Science, which deals with the problem of designing products with particular intended sensory qualities. Examples are food, beverage, and cosmetic industries. Researchers in these areas have found it necessary to differentiate between two types of subjective experience. One is the literal experience of the physical properties of products. Interestingly, those in this field have found it necessary to use trained experts for the purpose with proven levels of sensory discriminability and repeatability. The average person is not very good at this. However, these people only serve as biological test instruments for the purpose of describing the physical qualities of products. They do not render qualitative judgements about the products being evaluated.
The other type of experience is qualitative and is limited to such generic attributes as "liking" or "preference". Such judgements are provided by a sample of consumers who are like those for whom the product is intended. These people lack the sensitivity and reliability to describe physical details of products, so they aren't trusted for that.
In the end, the descriptive data provided by "experts" are correlated with "liking" data provided by intended consumers and the physical qualities that are most correlated with liking are chosen as design criteria for manufacture. Those in the sensory industries have found this method to be the most reliable way to produce products of consistently good quality.
My sense is that most audiophiles consider themselves to be good at describing the physical qualities of audio systems. That might be true, but in reality it is a pretty unique skill. However, most people can easily judge whether or like something or not. My point is simply that deciding whether you like a system is a good place to start. Figuring out why you like it, or what to change, is a secondary question and you might need help with that.
