I don’t expect you to accept anything I have to say any more than I expect to ever agree with Anupc’s objectivist leanings.
I don’t double-blind, I do all my evaluation completely sighted, and I believe I control for bias given how often I don’t choose to purchase products that are very highly reviewed by magazines and others. A great example is I recently demoed a Simaudio MOON 810LP phono preamp, which is very highly regarded throughout the industry, and it took me all of thirty seconds to hear that it paled considerably compared to my Audio Research Ref 2 Phono SE. (Likewise it took about the same time to hear how much better the Ref 3 Phono SE sounds when I recently had an opportunity to trade up, and I did.)
You can choose to accept what I have to say or not, but I certainly would never, ever want anyone to make a purchasing decision based upon what I say.
Rather, as with magazine reviews, I would hope at best my words would help others to narrow down what they want to audition, using whatever methodology they choose. (I also only read reviews to determine what I want to audition, and don’t think I’ve ever spent more than a few seconds looking at Stereophile’s published measurements except to check whether amplifiers meet their rated power output.)
If others measure or listen and find no differences and consider me under the influence of snake oil peddlers, so be it; I know what I hear, I do my own testing and select products that make improvements in my system.
Likewise I find myself most often purchasing products from companies that use measurements to determine why what they’ve experimentally determined sounds better sounds better and those that listen to each product to make sure it sounds right before it leaves the factory.
Wadias actually almost always measured poorly in some way, but they were the DAC that previous to my Rossini + Rossini Clock sounded the most like… music, and were the first DAC I heard that ever did, something I never realized listening to earlier CD players until I heard it.
I’m just relating my experiences, feel free to place me in whatever category you choose.