“Technicalities don’t exist” honestly seems pretty straightforward to me.

Let’s take the MEST, with its holographic imaging. Now if everything we hear is simply a matter of frequency, we should be able to EQ some free apple earbuds to sound exactly the same.

I’ll wait.

Let’s take two sets of MEST and see if we can EQ one so that it has shitty imaging.

I’ll wait.

Let’s see if we can pick two sets of headphones with identical driver configurations (say a single DD of equal size, or two hybrids with the same DD and BA combination). One set costs $100 and the other costs $1000. You volume match and play each from the same source. Can you EQ the $100 set to sound identical to the $1000 set?

Take the same scenario, and let’s assume both sets even match tuning on a frequency response graph. Assume they are tuned the same way. Listen to both. Do they sound identical?

Of course not. No for all scenarios. Claiming that there’s nothing to hear that can’t be limited to frequencies doesn’t hold water logically and it isn’t the case in real world usage either.

It’s the sort of argument put forth by hyper-objectivists and it’s laughable. They can’t demonstrate it, they can’t prove that any such experiments are consistently repeatable. The whole point of the objective approach to audiophile gear is to use science to prove the difference between products regardless of what one thinks they hear- but I am yet to see science prove that technicalities don’t exist. It’s ironic and again doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. All I can say is prove it or go home. I don’t need a clinical trial to know that you can’t EQ all technicalities. There are elements of hearing that can’t be reduced to frequency response.