The Border Patrol DAC - Maybe linearity in a DAC is bad ... Spitballing

I was told how superior digital was when it was introduced. It sounded terrible to me. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve heard material played on digital systems that provided a convincing illusion of musical reality.
The numbers, aside from questioning whether they are ’testing the right thing,’ also don’t reflect what gear sounds like in actuality, playing music. I remember hearing Spectral stuff back in the day- very precise, accurate, etc. (I owned Crosby modded Quad 63s at the time that confederation of West Coast audiophiles was using and modding such gear). To me, it sounded unnaturally precise- too precise if there can be such a thing. Real instruments don’t sound like that to my ears.
I know that puts us into a relativistic universe. I don’t rely on the opinions of others, no matter how credible. I’ve got to hear it for myself, preferably on my system, with a diverse assortment of material (still, in my estimation, the biggest bugaboo in this game- the source material often varies considerably in sonics, even different iterations or masterings of the same recording). I prefer to evaluate equipment using ’regular’ recordings, not audiophile spectaculars since I don’t usually listen to audiophile records as part of my musical diet.
One other factor- not sure how much it is taken into account when people listen at shows or in similar environments- how much ambient noise is affecting what you are hearing. I don’t tend to listen at LOUD levels, preferring to get as much musical information as I can at modest dB. To do that, you not only have to work with the noise floor of the system, but the surrounding noise of the listening environment. It’s pretty instructive to take a dB meter into your room and see just how noisy it is--
I don’t think you need ’golden ears’ to hear these differences. You do need access to the equipment, though, and often, that’s not in environments that are optimized for critical listening....

I had a very similar Spectral experience (Dr. Keith Johnson controlled the room) with them  driving Avalons at CES in the late 1990s. The sound quality was threadbare,  mechanical and artificial in my opinion.  About 30 minutes after this demonstration I heard in another room the exact same Avalon model speakers driven by Jeff Rowland electronics. Substantially better, natural and very emotionally involving relative to the Spectral components. Much more instrumental realism.  Those Avalons really revealed the stark sonic differences between the two brands. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Spectral components had the superior measurements on a test bench. Hearing both there was no comparison.
Charles 

At the end of the day, you hear what you hear, and it’s your money.

And no, I’m not having my own definition of cold. Cold is the opposite of warm, warm sound is rolled off highs (like ELAC speakers, Andrew Jones himself states this is intentional and also described it as warm). If you don’t mean that, then don’t use the incorrect descriptive word.

And also, no, even if I made my own recordings, and compared to different DACs, if they weren’t compared to with the restrictions I stated, even I wouldn’t be able to accurately state which is closer to the original. Our brains are very stupid in this regard, there’s not a human alive which can accurately compare two audio products while knowing and seeing what the products are. 
 
I would like any explanation anyone can conjour up on how the Benchmark could remove the church walls in the recording. It’s like saying one speaker wire has a wider soundstage than another, it’s simply an impossible acchievmant as the two have nothing in common. It’s like me saying using fine china over everyday ceramic plates makes the food taste better (metal spoons over plastic spoons do in fact alter taste though).

I agree, that ears matter.

I do want to kind of emphasize that when I posted this thread I was using "linearity" as a very specific measure.

I don't mean to rehash all things about all measurements.

But, what if specifically, with DACs we prefer some compression at the bottom? Why not?

What if this is in fact correcting a problem in the ADC end?

I haven’t heard the BP or BM DACs but I’m also having trouble accepting that the BM DAC is actually "removing" musical content from the original recording. Someone used the video analogy earlier and my guess is that the difference has to do with the level of "contrast" presented by these two DACs, perhaps just like the view of the same image presented by different monitors. I suspect the ear/brain just focuses on different parts of the same content depending on the relative contrast within the content. My 2 cents.