Musetec (LKS) MH-DA005 DAC

| my friend, why do you insist on wanting to see the measurements too? don't you trust your ears? 

We've been through this - I do research for a living. Case reports are the lowest form of evidence - they often provide false information about causal relationships. I know enough to know that my own ears have provided both reliable and unreliable evidence depending on the type of music, equipment, mood, and time of day,

On occasion, I will consider individual listening reports - always with some skepticism - IF the person listens to music for a living and is able to intelligently describe differences in sound- that is a rare individual. For the general population, I am confident playing Vegas odds that you could not reliably distinguish the Musetec in any sort of believable controlled experiment, and that any possible differences would be removed by changing the music or other gear. 

This was never about the false idea that minute differences in distortion profiles, signal-to-noise ratio, linearity, and other measurable characteristics can somehow be amalgamated into a predictable sound signature. These characteristics - to me - provide a broad sense of the fitness of the engineering and industrial design. For an amplifier, a 2 db difference in channels or separation less than 70 db may not even be audible to most people. But - for me - these signal other problems that exclude the component from audition.

@americanspirit  Nothing to do with not trusting my sonic preferences or listening sense, more about sheer curiosity. Perhaps some day we'll have measurement protocol that more closely aligns with our listening senses.  This will require technical innovation from those with an open mind, I wouldn't mind seeing the objective and subjective come together, I maintain hope!

@batvac2  You said: "These [quantitative] characteristics - to me - provide a broad sense of the fitness of the engineering and industrial design."

I think what you are saying, if I can restate, is your method of evaluating the quality of a piece of audio equipment, includes measured excellence, not because it will necessarily sound better, but because it gives you confidence in the quality, much like provenance to a work of art. It is not just your subjective experience alone, but the customary earmarks of quality. A fake work or art may be just as enjoyable as the original, but you want also what is generally accepted as an earmark of quality.

Yes, but I think a little more because it is an engineered device rather than a painting. It has to produce an analog signal that bears resemblance to its input in terms of frequency, phase, linearity, timing... even if the source material is not ideally recorded. The "art" is in passing as much of the signal as possible, including any warts and blemishes. Still, no device can do this perfectly, and there seems to be no way - other than listening - to predict how small differences in each characteristic of reproduction and their interaction will combine to form perceived sound. So I am comfortable letting personal taste dictate the choice of component among those with the highest degree of fidelity. 

@batvac2 brings out unique qualities of high end audio, content of what we play is artistic, and the highest quality reproduction of that content is what we seek. We desire maximum engagement with the artist and his/her art. So the pursuit is inherently artistic, yet we have mitigating factors of technology, engineering, measurements. The subjective/objective conundrum remains constant.

We shouldn't fight with  competing dogmas, rather learn to live with the imperfectness of both. I'd hope we'd all admit our human senses and  measurement protocols far from perfect, room for improvement in both, just leave it at that.