This hobby is for hedonists, not scientists

Three of my favorite subjects!  HiFi, epistemology, and…bagels.  
I agree with @newton_john and @ddgtt in that without STEM, we’d have no HiFi.

Can faithful audio reproduction be fully proven by the commonly made measurements used by ASR, Stereophile, HFN&RR, etc? Maybe not…AND not everyone is after “faithful reproduction”.  But even as a non-scientist I believe that what we hear can be reduced to measurable phenomena. We all hear sound waves, however created. 
On Bagels, as a Bergen County NJ (NYC adjacent) product who has been in the Boston area most of my life, I will say this…any bagel with sugar in it ain’t worthy of the name!  Up here we have several purveyors of echt tori, my personal favorite being Bagel World, and we have a Montreal style bakery, Iggy’s, making something wonderful that resembles a bagel in concept, but not in execution. The supermarket kind, even Trader Joes, are contemptible. 

@stuartk Agreed, real NY bagels are not and do not remain cushion-like like single bake process preserved commercial imitations.  A real NY bagel of high quality ingredients without preservatives, cooked by a dual boil/bake process has density and a wonderful smooth crust.  While there is nothing like a hot, fresh, local NY shop bagel,  their resilience is noteworthy, back to near fresh goodness by careful timing for a few seconds in a microwave or toaster. No other baked grain staple is as resilient.  

I ain't no scientist and don't have enough of a budget to be an audiophile. I do like to tinker a little with old turntables. Not even a real technician.

My advice: Any time someone makes a blanket statement painting all audiophiles with the same brush, ignore it. Listen to those that have something helpful and/or constructive to say. 

Yeah well true I think we all do it for pleasure but hard to tell sometimes.