Radioeng, your posts always fascinate me and get me to thinking .... usually a lot! Just thinking in hypothetical terms here, but is it possible that some sorts of gross errors or differences are barely noticeable by the human hearing process but many tiny errors or differences are much more noticeable of bothersome to the human hearing process? We tend to concentrate or assume that gross or large errors MUST be much more noticeable or bothersome than certain tiny ones which would seem to be the wrong assumption to make. I've noticed that the low frequency noise rumble) made by direct drive TTs is far more bothersome to me than that of belt drive units, even when the DD TT measure better than the BD TT; almost like it makes me feel a bit queasy. The old "if the numbers say its better,then it must be better" syndrome. Maybe the whole vinyl VS CD thing could be compared to the tube versus SS debate.
Any comments or ideas on this?