Amir and Blind Testing

@bruce19 it came pretty quick - maybe 5 days at most I think. The distributor (Vinshine) must be going for some sort of customer service world record because they are beyond helpful. 
 

Personally I don’t get what you could measure with a DAC that would matter sound wise. The topping DACs measure perfectly according to ASR and I don’t doubt the results. But I couldn’t tell the difference between my 200 dollar topping DAC and simply plugging my laptop audio out to preamp rca inputs. The Pontus was a big improvement however - as it should for 10x the price and some beautiful engineering. 

Sometimes you just need to take it with a grain of salt when reading Amir's measurements and his assessment. It is the same for other reviewers' comments.  I found, though, good measurement is not a sufficient condition of a well-received devices, but often a necessary condition.  For example, Schiit Bifrost 2 receives many good to excellent reviews from reputable reviewers but it does not measure well in ASR.  On the other hand, a majority of well-received devices have good measurements from ASR even the entry level ones (like DACs).  

I really like what Amir is doing on ASR. Measurements are super helpful in gaining a better understanding of what is happening when I like or don’t like reproduced sound. They help me get to where I want to be without stumbling in the dark so much, or overdoing something while another issue is the real problem. I generally find the science he goes by matches what I hear. I’m open though to the possibility that something that escapes the standard set of measurements could make an audibly important difference to me. Recently I’ve started to think I’m hearing a meaningful difference if I digitally reduce the input to my dacs, and then turn up the pre-amp at the analog stage to get the volume back up. It seems more dynamic. If that’s the truth I should be able to measure it somehow. As for why that might be, my dacs are modified in a way that is generally considered not good practice - they don’t have op-amps on the outputs and just feed straight into the pre-amp stage. I’m thinking they might be pooping out when asked to output too much voltage due to insufficient impedance on the pre-amp inputs. In any case, I think I’m hearing something as an improvement that I wouldn’t have thought would be an improvement because of loss of bit depth, but perhaps it is because bit depth isn’t the limiting problem in my case. For now I’m just enjoying the perception, but I’d like to figure out how to test this and see if I can show some measurements to back up this idea. If I can, I might want to invest in some new dacs, or a new crossover unit, or both! You know, I guess I could send my crossover unit to Amir and have him measure it! But then my stereo would be out of service.

@daveinpa "...But I couldn’t tell the difference between my 200 dollar topping DAC and simply plugging my laptop audio out to preamp rca inputs..."

I do not think Topping $200 ish or even sub $200 Dac (assuming your Topping Dac is one of the good ones in ASR) is that bad (unless the internal Dac inside your laptop is equally good). First off, the average output voltage from a laptop jack output is around 1.5 volts, slightly lower than the 2 volts of Dac output and the P.A input. So I believe, with everything else being equal, the volume output level will have to be lower from laptop->PA setting. Secondly, even you match the volume level with ext. Dac->PA setting, the internal Dac of laptop is in general less quality (Mac uses Cirrus Logic and is generally better) that results in less dynamic, less bass, less full midrange, and less almost everything as compared to entry level Topping or other well-received brand such as Smsl. When I upgrade from the entry level Dac to mid-tier (around $500), the improvement is also pronounced just like from laptop internal Dac to entry level external Dac. I think this "accerlerated return" improvement is consistent with what is shown in the ASR’s measurements.