audiophiles get mention in today's WSJournal

All audiophiles don't spend $50,000 on turntables. This guy is one of the many reasons I quit reading the newspaper. Seriously, why would I listen to a guy whose medium is dead??

No surprises here. It is indeed extremely difficult to hear such small differences (for most mere mortals)

I did extensive test with Sony's Atrac compression and concluded I could hear a difference but it was not at all easy. The same result for iTunes files AAC 128 Kbps - often it is extremely hard to tell them against uncompressed files but generally you can with careful & extensive listening. Hoever, somewhere above 256 Kbps compressed files the ability to tell the difference becomes exponentially harder...just my experience with my tin ears....so I am hardly surprised by the findings in this article.

How does the WSJ know which is the better product?
If most people picked the other one, maybe it is the better product, and not the one the WSJ thinks is better.
The one the WSJ thinks is better might be an overpriced piece of hype. Not all that uncommon.
How do you define better?

Well I agree with the totally insane versus the merely crazy part.

If WSJ did picture quality test at Best Buy and asked 100 rendom shoppers which display is 720P and which is 1080i/p.
Results would be very similar.(if you hand the WSJ and Sears Winter Catalog (SWC) to the illiterate kid, SWC might win......... by the hair)

Trained eye will allways spot the fake art of B.S.
Trained ear will allways know it even with the eyes closed.