‘Controversial’ and ‘tiny minority’ have no relationship to each other. Consider the examples of the last US president or the issue of abortion.
Personal experience is weaker than samples in empirical research. The individual reports here are still valuable for those who look for patterns. You use the word ‘objective’. I would at least call into question the usefulness of the concept of scientific objectivity for going about our audiophile hobby. Scientific objectivity seeks to eliminate biases, emotions and false beliefs for testability and reproducibility. Biases - I don’t care, it’s my free time and if I’m enjoying myself, where’s the issue. We are talking about music listening and that’s an emotional affair. Eliminating emotion doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. False beliefs - yes, as it would help in choosing better gear. Instead of objectivity I suggest using the methods of dealing with complex systems as the human body and mind are complex.
Occam’s razor refers to parsimony in scientific problem solving. Maybe you can explain how that relates to the issue at hand?
We arrive at this point regularly in our community. It feels repetitive. It really helps when we recognize the vast diversity of dispositions we all have. Just look at a beggar versus a king. Their lives are completely different and presented with the same information they would surely decide differently. Or look at an accomplished composer. His perception of music must be very different from mine. I’m actually incapable of creating music. Or look at the portraits of rock and pop musicians Annie Leibovitz shot for the Rolling Stone. I would never be able to create those. These are just analogies for how each one of us perceives music or sound in a different fashion. You might be interested in the books ‘Musicophilia’ by Oliver Sacks (where he describes ‘amusia’) and ‘This Is Your Brain On Music’ by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin.