Its a tool. No tool is perfect. If it fits the task at hand use it. Just don't expect anyone else will draw the same conclusion. They may or may not and it should not matter other than as a point of interest. Only you can hear what you hear. No one else. Being of the same species, we all hear similarly perhaps but not exactly the same. Some differences may be major others subtle. The subtle ones will probably never be measured or quantified so just forget about it.
In defense of ABX testing
We Audiophiles need to get ourselves out of the stoneage, reject mythology, and say goodbye to superstition. Especially the reviewers, who do us a disservice by endlessly writing articles claiming the latest tweak or gadget revolutionized the sound of their system. Likewise, any reviewer who claims that ABX testing is not applicable to high end audio needs to find a new career path. Like anything, there is a right way and many wrong ways. Hail Science!
Here's an interesting thread on the hydrogenaudio website:
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=108062
This caught my eye in particular:
"The problem with sighted evaluations is very visible in consumer high end audio, where all sorts of very poorly trained listeners claim that they have heard differences that, in technical terms are impossibly small or non existent.
The corresponding problem is that blind tests deal with this problem of false positives very effectively, but can easily produce false negatives."
Here's an interesting thread on the hydrogenaudio website:
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=108062
This caught my eye in particular:
"The problem with sighted evaluations is very visible in consumer high end audio, where all sorts of very poorly trained listeners claim that they have heard differences that, in technical terms are impossibly small or non existent.
The corresponding problem is that blind tests deal with this problem of false positives very effectively, but can easily produce false negatives."