I received this message late last night from Jinbo Li, designer and manufacturer of the Musetec:
Our current testing equipment can’t compare with ASR’s equipment. Their equipment is the highest grade at present. As I said in my previous email, I really don’t pay much attention to testing performance. But I think the real test performance fully meets the requirements. The main problem in ASR test is that SINAD is not good. This is mainly caused by multiple harmonics. The overall base noise of DAC is still very low. The main reason for this is that, as friends of audiogon forum said, low negative feedback at the output stage will increase distortion, but the sound will have rich texture, while deep negative feedback will make the test data better, but it will obviously make the sound colder and drier. Many experienced enthusiasts understand this situation.
Products serve people. We must recognize this before we can choose the right direction in the design.
However, I will still buy a high-end tester of the same grade as ASR equipment for verification. I hope to make some efforts next. According to the verification results, if necessary, I will update the design for some customers in need. I will try my best to serve every loyal customer friend.
It is now my intention to tell him that no one who has a Musetec 005 has yet expressed a desire for a modification that would improve measurement specifications if it is at the expense of the final sound quality as he perceives it. That note won’t go out for several hours.
As an aside, many of us find tubed electronics and/or analog sound to do very well at sounding like the real thing. At the same time we know they cannot compete in specifications with solid state and digital.