Of course, it is up to the person making the claims if they are willing
to
give any evidence/details when asked. Just as it is up to others to
decide
if the claim is worth taking seriously or not. Jim

I really think you are in complete denial over all this, Jim. Here,
once again are your exact words. Again the same thing. You ask for (I
used the word demand previously, but ask is OK) evidence BEYOND what is
provided. What is usually provided (if we ignore deliberate hype) is
the usual comparative listening results, which some, though not all,
have gone to great pains to make as objective as possible. Best of a
bad job, maybe, but that's overwhelmingly how the industry works -
comparative listening. Since this is how information about products is
usually assessed, then you - as you have said yourself - are asking for
more than the majority of people are able or willing to provide, thus
putting them potentially into a zone of discomfort. Now I have no
problem with this if, as I have said many times, your attitude is "If
you can't provide any details, then fine - I was just asking". But your
attitude is NOT this. What you then do is invoke "others" (your exact
word above, so let's not have any stuff about being misrepresented) and
collectively accuse the person of communicating in a way that is not
"worth taking seriously" (your exact words). If you don't think that
telling people they're not worth taking seriously is being dismissive,
then I come back to saying you're in denial. And I say again, you won't
change because you don't see this and you will systematically continue
as you have done, despite the fact that obviously there are people who
object to not being taken seriously when what they are doing is
genuinely and in good faith providing the sort of comparative listening
data that virtually everybody uses as a lingua franca in the business.