The "quality of our music reproduction equipment" can be effectively measured and evaluate in small room varying acoustic conditions...The gear dont manifest his quality directly to our brain bypassing the relations of the drivers speakers/room/ears...Then "taste" is then as you just say a meaningless subjective revendication as in a children case saying to his mother, i dont like pea soup but only chicken soup...Children must learn how to eat and why and must learn to use their taste..
Taste is a subjective right with no meaning outside ourself...Claiming it valid is simply refusing to learn about our own limitations and to learn how to listen...
Crocodile taste and love only rotten meat...Mankind may and must learn cooking and the art of listening ...
You probably dont even know how is the real potential S.Q. or defects of your system because they are not experienced in an optimally dedicated acoustic room conditions...Then our "taste" is a passive seating position, an abdication ... Some solve it by upgrades, but purchasing is most of the time also a passive attitude...It is the reason why some people to cure frustrations own tons of audio materials....I know because i purchase 10 headphones before learning the lesson...
Taste must be educated, we are not crocodile...We must go active with simple listening experiments to learn about concept as reberberation time, timbre, dynamic, transients, immersiveness , sound sources differentiation and dimensions and many other concepts in experimenting with them ....
In psycho-acoustic it is a principle to vary measures, electronical one or mechanical or acoustical one, to experience specific changes and their meaning correlation in relation to our biases and taste...
My acoustic room for example was optimal for me, it cannot be for everyone...Because my head diameter and my ears geometry, and my gear and speakers and acoustic content in my room differ from yours, it isnot my taste the explanation here but acoustic ... acoustician dont create small room acoustic or great Hall acoustic with their "taste" but with their experiences... What other reason?
Because small room acoustic of audiophile dont use time and timing waves or reflected waves and reverberation in the same way as in a great Hall and the gear and room must be adapted to one another for specific ears, and a great Hall is designed for a seating crowd...
Subjective is the origin, objective is a conquest...What is really beautiful is being able to relate consciously the two sides of the journey ...
If we accept that the quality of our music reproduction equipment cannot be MEASURED, then we simply declared it ART or TASTE.
The beauty is (and feeding our hobby), that is it now is totally subjective, since TASTE is the DEFINITION OF SUBJECTIVE. Therefore, I hereby declare that my $400 Onky with my speakers and my $100 CD player is the BEST SYSTEM IN THE WORLD irrespective of price.
Now if ONE person here questions that, he/she does NOT get the point of what ’taste’ is. It is SOLELEY ’in the eye of the beholder’. Even if you may argue that there thousands who disagree, I am stil right. Subjective is Beautiful.