As was said earlier if a DAC with poor test results sounded good then that's ASR completely discredited.
This is completely missing the point. If something measures poorly but has no audible problems, then maybe the problem is below the threshold of audibility. In other words, even though the Musetec has a jitter-prone digital interface, you can't detect it via listening.
This is why scientists and engineers measure. They attempt to correlate observable, quantifiable data with perception. This is the fundamental misunderstanding I see in audio today on this particular issue - the blind listening tests and the measurements are performed so we know what is an audible phenomena. If the phenomena happens to be a problem, then we can find ways to fix it to advance the state of the art.
This is why blind listening tests are important. It removes the bias that sighted listening introduces and makes our judgments about changes in sound quality more consistent and reliable.
Now that we have repeatable, verifiable measurements and reliable observations from blind listening, we can start to make connections between the two. We can understand how changes in frequency response affect subjective appraisals of sound quality. We can quantify at what level of distortion we can call an amp audibly 'transparent'.
This is not to say that measurements are the be all, end all. But in my experience, using measurements makes it much, much easier to obtain the sound that you want. It gives you a target to shoot for instead of wandering around in the dark. It helps you make better decisions about what gear to buy and how to use it instead of being whipsawed by the flavor of the month or contradictory audiophile 'wisdom'.
In any case, apologies for further derailing this thread. I highly encourage any audiophile halfway interested in learning more to visit the following:
Audio Check - Audio Tests - Blind Tests
Let's Listen to Jitter Effects
Objective Loudspeaker Measurements to Predict Subjective Preferences?