I would say the that a few years back I was at least half way down the road to audio hell.

I wanted to hear certain recordings as I thought I remembered hearing them previously and what I thought was right. How could that be a good way of going on, everything I had previously heard could have been perfect or completely wrong and I would have never know one way or another. Which is more or less what the writer of the article is saying.

In recent years I moved away from the comparison/evaluation approach as much as possible when listening to new gear or making changes, although I must admit I did still use some favourite recordings which I was familiar with, so still a quarter of the way onto the road to hell. However I did start throwing in random recordings I did not know or had not listened to for many years to see if I enjoyed them, and took much longer listening to the system before deciding.

Nowadays I am more interested in enjoying what I am listening to and its impact on me. I think I have been very lucky over that last 4 years changing components having ended up with a system that gives me enjoyment and portrays the emotion of musical content as I would like, and I have noticed that this goes across most all genres, so I am reasonably confident it works well across a brand spectrum. How good this is varies with recordings, some are better than others, is this down to my system inadequacies or poor recordings, I have know way of truly knowing, however I have replaced some favourite recordings recently that I was dissatisfied with a few have sounded better, or I think so, but for some I can hear no difference.