Good read: why comparing specifications is pointless

This entire line of thought makes zero sense.

Why feel bad for selling his gear?

Why did you buy it knowing Topping was better according to you?

ow do you know they can't afford it?  I recently reviewed a bunch of Chord gear from a member.  Cost?  Around $30K.  He bought a Topping DAC to replace it all and said it sounded just as good.  He was so nice about it that felt guilty to sell the Chord gear to someone else.  I suspect money is not nearly as valuable to him as his ethics there.

I personally replaced my $6,000 Mark Levinson DAC (and older multibit one), with a Topping as well.  I have more capabilities and have not lost a bit of fidelity.  I have however, lost prestige given how small it looks compared the Levinson DAC.

Half of this debate is actually user preferences versus accuracy.  'Musical' to me may mean elevated bass relative the male vocal frequencies.  To the next person it may mean elevated mid range and lower high and low frequencies (i.e., 'highlighting the vocals').  One way to achieve user musical preferences is by years of mixing/ matching components, which may or may not get you where you want to be before you go bankrupt.  Another way is to assemble a system that is as accurate as possible, and then dial in variances in the frequency response.  Of course the room has to be dealt with as well.

@blacktalon , welcome to the forum. I agree that preferences are going to vary and if you don't deal with the room the rest of the specs really won't matter.

Most of us can agree that some parameters are vital, how many watts, impedance, speaker sensitivity etc in selecting hifi components. Unfortunately we are bombarded with measurements many of which are really meaningless in predicting how that component will sound. Saying that a THD of 0.005% reading means a product will sound better than one with 0.009% is absolutely ridiculous, you cannot hear such a difference, your speakers THD will be 10 times that maybe a 100. Ranking products on these measurements, or choosing them on such a basis is illogical. The measurement bears no relationship to how they will sound or interact with your system and less to what you will hear and nothing to do with what you will like.

@kota1 Thanks.  I've been here 6+ years but don't post much.