Interesting thread from Hydrogenaudio responding to this NYT article covering the merit (or otherwise) of audiophile equipment & compressed music. The discussion includes this stellar quote from Gordon Hold, founder of Stereophile:

Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me.

Disagree? I have some cables to sell you.