@melm The right review -- to the right reader -- means something. A reviewer with gear and taste that overlap with mine...their take means something to me. The trick is finding the right reviewers for you. That Stereophile reviewer spent time with another piece of gear I own. We both loved it. Evidently that reviewer's take means more to me than it does to you. So be it.
I chatted with the gentleman you mention below. He moved onto a more expensive DAC which personally isn't to my taste. But live and let live. This hobby is about musical enjoyment. System-matching and taste-matching is the entire game.
Back to the topic at hand -- reasonably priced R2R dacs -- I've put the Sonnet through its paces and it's great. Accurate and nuanced timbre, balanced from top to bottom, no digital edge. Is it as good as my reference DAC that costs three times as much? It is not. I could go on at length as to why, but what's the point -- they're in very different price brackets. I have yet to find this mythical thing called a giant killer. If you think you've found one, you're looking at the wrong giant. But if I was searching for a DAC in the $3-4k range, it's a wonderful DAC I could happily settle down with.