Has anyone ever thought that audiophoolery is just the leftovers from a generation of LSD usage?
I did a blind test one time with some passive crossovers I built vs the old ones they were replacing. The test was set up to demonstrate to a friend that old crossovers can have an effect on sound due to 30+ year old caps. We could tell the difference with cheap components, too, but we tested the caps afterward, and the cheapies weren't in spec.
Out of all of the parts we used that were close to spec, we couldn't tell any difference, between the $3 caps and his $30 BS audiophool fancy pants caps, and pretty much everything we could test that we had on hand at the same spec.