It is true to say that some people like the sound of one piece of equipment over another so extended listening would be a good way to decide if a claimed upgrade to a system is worthwhile to you.

However, for a manufacturer this seems an impractical way of proceeding . If they have one engineer leave and their replacement's opinion is different then the characteristic house sound will eventually be changed. Somehow this seems a little less than scientific.

I still find it difficult to think that Meridian might do a modification to their development equipment, listen to it for an extended period and then work on the basis of "do I like it or not?" rather than compare the incremental change before and after.

Malcolm