Agreed that extended listening periods to evaluate equipment is preferable.

While I believe you can hear differences between different types of equipment by A/B testing, whether or not you like the difference in the longer term requires more than a couple hours of evaluation. It's tough to know if you really like what a particular piece of equipment (cabling, tweaks, etc.) does to the sound without sufficient time to listen to it with a bunch of your music.

Hence the need for in-home evaluation for at least a weekend if not longer. Good dealers will give you this opportunity.

Roon, MS600, Simaudio 780D, Simaudio P-8/W-8 and Revel Studio 2s