Maybe, but in this case at least GP is not wrong to do so, merely lacking a little in nuance, in that on the "measurement" side, not everybody is looking for the flattest possible response.

On the whole, though, there absolutely is a sort of "audiophile" who spends thousands and thousands of perfectly good dollars on completely ridiculous paraphernalia, because a combination of placebo effect and escalating commitment convinces him that it makes his music sound better. I don't have time to dig up a complete selection of background for you, but here's a good place to start, with a fair selection of jumping-off points for further study:

http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2011/12/30/audiophiles-and-th...

The major difference between the fellow described in this article, and the more usual sort of placebo audiophile, is that this fellow happened actually to be an electrical engineer, and thus capable of demonstrating to himself that he was full of it. Unfortunately, such acumen seems to be rather rare.

There are also two types of Hacker News comments, those that whine and those that go meta.

... oh wait.