People forget that this is a hobby, not a freakin’ science project. I don’t have a problem with someone basing their buying decisions solely on measurements - to each his own. But to unilaterally declare it as some sort of a universal truth is rather juvenile. It’s perfectly fine to say that one would never buy a product that does not measure well on paper, we can certainly respect that point of view. Nowadays, most manufacturers have access to equipment to measure their products, it’s not rocket science anymore. This is exactly why a company like Topping can produce equipment that measures extremely well and sounds excellent by all accounts. But why is it so hard to understand that sometimes designers want to express themselves in a way that might not satisfy the measurement nazis but appeal to a specific segment.
Secondly, I’m always amazed when someone proclaims that the equipment should be true to the recording/source. Exactly how do you know how a recording is supposed to sound like? Were you there when it was being recorded? And why can’t we use a DAC to "color" the sound? Where does it say that coloration is only allowed downstream?
