Is because I ****ING SAY SO!

I totally agree.

It's the height of arrogance and incredibly ignorant to assume that you
*know* that another person's perception of a subjective issue is wrong.

However, in the real physical world, things are simpler.

What can be simpler than saying, "I prefer the sound of x over y"?

Why complicate such a response by debating its merit based on irrelevant
science?

Good music generates a visceral response - why must one man's preference for
one amp over another be called into question at all?

If the response is good, then the artist's work has been served by the
equipment used in its reproduction, whether it be valves, SS, live, vinyl,
CD or MP3.

No one can claim to speak for an experience which they have not lived.
You
are not me, therefore you cannot with any respectability, tell me that my
choice of hifi, cable, source - anything that I have chosen as
preferable -
is wrong.

We could however point to glaring problems with its fidelity to the
source material! :-)

We could but it still doesn't alter my preference for x over y and, as I
state, if my choice stirs something greater inside of me, then surely the
artist is better served then if I listen on equipment which, to my ears and
mind, present the music in an inferior manner.

In matters of taste, no one can arbitrate what is right or wrong without
exposing themselves to charges of "pompous, arrogant ****" - hence my
hifi
is better than yours P

I don''t recall any such argument being proposed, in matters of taste.
Of course, there's nothing quite so pompous and arrogant as assuming
that one person has 'better' taste than another - Chavs excepted! :-)

Who-oh-oh - what's chavs got to do, got to do with it?

Still, if reading the odd article about "youth culture" in The Independent
helps to keep you grounded, then feel free to elbow in the reference - even
if it does make you look pompous and arrogant P