Yep blame YouTube. Blame the recording equipment. Typical excuses. And some of those reviewers use very high end equipment and even include links to non compressed audio. What nobody seems to be willing to acknowledge is that these changes typically produce differences that are so subtle that it’s hard to even notice a change let alone conclude that they’ve made an improvement.
While I’d love to be able to home demo everything that’s just not realistic. YouTube isn’t ideal but at least it’s something. My findings from dac comparisons conducted at home were very much in line with what I heard in YouTube videos. I’ve also found YouTube useful for most speakers and amps, but I still demo in person before purchasing whenever possible.
I think some of you guys really need to be honest with yourselves before posting on here and making claims you know are unlikely to be challenged. You also need to educate yourself on cognitive dissonance and other forms of bias that influence how you feel about subjective tiny differences. I get you might be feeling distressed because you spent a ton of time & money on something that nobody else seemed to notice, but don’t make it worse by influencing others to do the same.