What bothers me about the review and some other AV reviews by Amir is that the effectiveness of the implementation of the Room Eq system (Dirac in this case) will have a much greater impact on sound quality than even the limitations of the power amps, but that is not actually evaluated.
I don't want to single one person out, but all the people who say "but it has DIRAC".
It would be like comparing two vehicles, [1] the manufacturer put in the money, time and effort to limit road noise to under 50 dB at 70 mph, while vehicle [2] cheaped out and tried to sell you garbage because of their brand name and their car output had 70 dB road noise at 70 mph.
Instead of creating more rigid chassis, adding the proper insulation and shocks, the manufacturer of vehicle [2] decided to add BOSE noise canceling technology that used the output of the car audio system to make the vehicle appear to have road noise of 50 dB and then reviewers argue the two are equal (in terms of road noise).
The fact is, I can use REW and so can anyone else who wants to put in a little (ok, a lot of) time and effort (but it's a hobby, so I enjoy spending the time). So I agree with
@amirm and I want the best product for the price. Lastly, while DIRAC has its share of fanboys, I've yet to see anyone take the exact same setup, swap out a top-line Yamaha (YPAO), Denon (Audyssey), Adcom (DIRAC) and then put 100 people into that room to A/B/C the three systems.
Do you know why none of the three will do that, because inevitably they will not get a consensus, because different people will like a different room correction, stating A lacked this, B lacked that, C lacked whatever else. With REW, I can ignore a pre-set curve and do what makes me happy.
Sorry for the rant, but this is only the 1,000th such post I've read essentially saying
"Ignore the mess, it has DIRAC!".