Bill, I also enjoy your thoughtful and thorough approach. It appears you are demonstrating signs of early PTSD, but please persevere. I have performed a fair number of blinded tests (thankfully they went unpublished) and understand they are a hassle. I have been in the process of "trying" to set up a blinded dac shootout in Atlanta this fall between the Phasure, L7, and the newer AMR. People do get cagey, but still it's fun and illuminating.
I "tried" to do the same thing many years ago with a set of speakers (Intuitive Design, SP Tech, and Audio Kinesis), but it flamed out and got a little tribal. You can find that soap opera documented on Audiocircle if you are morbidly curious.
To be honest, I would be proud to own a Killer dac, or L7 or Phasure. There is too much hand wringing on the mountain top. On a personal note, I am shopping for a dac that sounds like a good turntable. I share your enthusiasm Bill for NOS and vintage chips. The two dacs that are on the top of my list are the L7 and the Totaldac, but my mind is still open and thus the impetus for "hearing" things before I drop a lot of cash.
