Musetec (LKS) MH-DA005 DAC

@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.

My, my. How many angels are dancing on the head of this pin?

Consider two different strikes of an etching taken a few days apart. Number one has the artist’s signature on it He signed it and died the next day. He never saw the second, which was the next strike numbered consecutively, and it is indistinguishable from the first but for the signature. Both of them share the embossed stamp of the print studio guaranteeing authenticity.

The first will surely sell for more, probably much more. But is the second any less of an artistic achievement not worthy of the same admiration?

Perceptions can become beliefs which in turn become truths.