"Subjective experience is not science, but neither is it irrelevant." Ah, anecdata. Look, if you want to point to well controlled studies, etc, that say "these

"Subjective experience is not science, but neither is it irrelevant." Ah, anecdata. Look, if you want to point to well controlled studies, etc, that say "these factors do not correlate well with subjective experience", that's awesome. I'd then agree 100% "whatever we are measuring doesn't matter, we should measure something else". But in your rage, you are conflating two issues here, and they shouldn't be conflated at all: 1. Was this study science, and properly performed science? All available info seems to point to "yes, it was" There is no reason for you to put air quotes around science, etc. They set out what they are trying to measure and why: "This study quantifies variability of measured headphone response patterns and aims to uncover any correlations between headphone type, retail price, and frequency response." They did not set out to say whether that has any bearing on subject experience. In fact, they point out "The preferred response however seems to be listener, content, and headphone dependent <cite omitted>" 2. Does the thing they measured matter in any way to the subjective experience in the world? You vehemently suggest "no". I'm going to suggest if you want to convince people the answer is no, you should point them to data that says "the thing they measured, properly, doesn't matter", and not appeal to anecdote and authority. They cite at least three studies thinking it matters: "In particular, research suggests that the frequency (magnitude) response is a major factor in listener preference scores (Olive and Welti, 2012; Fleischmann et al., 2012; Olive et al., 2013)" (and they are super careful not to suggest that listener preference scores completely correlate with subject experience) but at the same time, admit "Research suggests that factors influencing consumers' choice as to which model to purchase are mostly based on wireless functionality (Iyer and Jelisejeva, 2016) and attributes such as shape, design, and comfort (Jensen et al., 2016)." They also admit the studies usually are small and that the body of work is not huge. So, from my perspective, i feel like they are doing a fairly reasonable job of trying to present a relatively objective perspective on whether this matters or not. You may want to try to do the same :)