The fact that large manufacturers have a stranglehold on the press, which is contentious to say the least, presupposes that individuals are malleable to what they read and unable to make independent decisions based on personal, lived experience. This is a bold claim insofar as it assumes that people are not possessed of agency but rather simply receivers of programming. Now, if you argue that the proliferation of certain forms of measurements has become a convention by which to evaluate, ex ante, the virtues of some given gear, and that the convergence in the measurements is such that statistically speaking, the gear measures the same (and you need to do this as a study if you wish to generalize) yet sounds different then perhaps I would agree. However, in the high end, it does seem that the majority of new generation reviews do not measure the gear they evaluate. The European magazines do, as does S-phile and some on the S-Stage network. One could also approach such measurements with a certain threshold discriminator as a way of indicating problems with the design- such as amplifier instability etc but then say that as long as the measurements are within reason, the gear will be worth finding the time to audition in person.
As for your friend's supposition, it simply reveals the typical fundamental attribution problem where people who are expert, tend to valorize their own expertise (as some fundamental attribute) while downplaying (or denigrating) the attributes of others. As normal humans are possessed of auditory capabilities, speak and listen to sounds to navigate life, I would aver that they are sufficiently equipped to make judgments for themselves. Have I never hard someone sing or play an instrument? Of course I have. Has this musician ever engineered a product or recorded sound, mixed, produced and then delivered it? The supply chain from source to package is complex and the economics are such that utopian ideals are just that - but it should not keep someone from striving to produce improved sound. I'd rather, however, leave the bemoaning aside. This attitude can be applied to any endeavor in life; to wit, why do we spend so much on college athletics, entertainment etc and so little on advances in science, healthcare etc?
As for reviews, I've read multiple reviews of Bybee gear over the years, as well as Sound Labs and also fora threads on the TUC products. Given that the Internet has a near zero barrier to entry, one should not bray against established magazines (who in their own way face the problem of physical delivery and falling readerships) when one can freely drum up business by sending out review samples to the various blogs in the various languages (I'm thinking that Japanese, Chinese and Russian are three huge markets that most American-based perspective forget).
As for the baloney part; it is true that there is a lot wrong in high end audio, particularly when high end is considered by price first (and often alone).
Finally, it is possible that an individual is blessed with some insight/talent/experience to make meaningful differences to a stock piece of gear. For those contemplating the hire of such a service provider, one would wonder what general methods are employed. Is there a systematic approach to analyzing the effects of certain changes in a controlled fashion (that is, does the provider have a rigorous, QC in industrial design to validate his changes such that, epistemologically, he is comfortable stating that what he knows he knows is true and not spurious?) This is the kind of question I would ask and it is unrelated to the actual intellectual property of the parts and modifications involved.
If I were to take my porsche in, would I want someone who wings it and trust his reputation alone (and his line that it is art and not engineering he is pursuing) or would I want someone who has a manner of on inquiry that is critically reflexive and thus SELF-substantiating?
