It's cheap and beginner friendly and very easy to learn. There is an overwhelming amount of ESP32 boards, variants and software which is daunting when you're just getting into embedded development.
I can assure you that audio codec testing is a through science. Tools such as PSNR, PEAQ or POLQA all have limitations and cannot fully replace a human listener. Those familiar with the topic are often vocal critics of audiophile bullshit.
No, this is nowhere near pseudoscience, psychoacoustics is an established field of science.
Yea same with me. Unless you have a perfect setup this is good enough. Though if you want to do a little experiment, try Fatboy Slim's Kalifornia, the beginning is notorious for destroying transform based codecs.
If anything those tests make it easier to find subtle differences, which is good if transparency is the goal. I don't think that makes them fundamentally flawed. They are used throughout the industry, making results comparable.
Of course there are other ITU tests that work without hidden references, looping or even A/B comparison. They require a much bigger listener pool, are more expensive and take longer, thus used less often during development.
I spent half my professional career doing listening tests (MUSHRA and P.800), specifically on test items like Tom's diner. 128 kbps mp3 ist fairly easy to pick out, especially if you can compare it to the original. Double the bitrate and it's a real challenge.
Modern codes like opus are much more efficient. At high bitrates they are fully transparent and anybody who claims to be able to hear a difference is full of shit. Put them in a controlled setting and they fail every time.