Harry Lavo wrote:

snip

Because there is a tendency here to assume that anybody who hears
differences is kidding themselves, and that most likely there is no
difference unless we are talking about phono cartridges or
loudspeakers.
That "standard" is applied to turntables, tonearms, tuners, CD
players,
amplifiers almost without discrimination.

Not at all true. Turntables and tuners can often be distinguished. Amps
and CDPs generally not, but that doesn't mean that people who claim to
hear differences between them are kidding themselves. It takes careful
level-matching to make two such units sound identical, and I'll bet
most audiophiles don't whip out a voltmeter every time they try out a
new component. So the differences they hear are real; they just aren't
reflective of the sound quality of the two components.

bob