Brulosophy did a side by side comparison of pellet vs whole cone hops. Out of 21 tasters in a triangle test 12 of them were able to pick out the unique sample. They then took those 12 and asked them to take a preference survey. Three said they prefer the sample made with whole cone hops. and three said they preferred the one made with pellet hops. The remaining 6 had no preference.
After all of that however they author had this to say in his conclusions:
One unavoidable caveat to this xBmt is that, despite the hops being of the same variety and crop year, as well as from the same source, there’s no way to be certain they came from the same farm or processor. As such, it’s impossible to say with confidence that the differences perceived by tasters in this xBmt were due only to the form the hops were in, as it could be a function of something like growing conditions, processing, etc.