Maybe not some of the particularly horrible ones, but assuming they were properly chosen for the task at hand, and aren't broken by fault or design, then yes.
Despite the confident claims made, and despite the fame and fortune that would follow such a properly conducted blind test, no one has provided evidence to the contrary.
If Chord produced an acceptable test showing its products are preferred over the competition, many here would buy them, if only to try to figure out why. I would.
The responses to requests for evidence generally center around them just being too hard, so it shouldn't be expected. Crowdsourced claims are not the same as evidence.
Thanks. The blind test point makes a lot of sense, and I agree on that. That's really the only surefire way to see if there are subjective differences. And you're right, blind tests are sorely lacking in this industry, perhaps because they would be too revealing. (Personally, I believe many "celebrity" designers don't trust blind tests of random people because they think they can hear things others can't. More practical engineers on the other hand working at Apple, for example, don't want to take the chance of designing a product that doesn't sell so they will do blind tests to make sure they tune it properly).
On the other hand, for someone who already believes that there is no possible audible difference between, say, the DACs on Amir's list, it doesn't make sense to even test anything. This is all just a waste of time. Because no measurement that shows a difference in available DACs will change their belief, even if the DAVE measured superior to the Topping D90SE in, say, THD. That's fine, I guess these DAC threads aren't for them. But at the same time they shouldn't cite this review as *supporting* their view, because the review doesn't add any evidence to support their belief, it just gives you comparative numbers with no way to associate them with subjective perceptions. What the review shows is that the DAVE is a surprisingly inferior DAC to many other ones, much cheaper, on sensible measurements of what a DAC should be doing, as well as suggesting poor build quality. I think that by itself is very important to know if you're considering buying the DAVE.
For me, objective measurements and subjective impressions work together. I haven't listened to every DAC, so I don't want to say that I can say for sure that there isn't a superior one like the far more expensive Vivaldi Apex (of which I just received an email inquiry). But I find it telling that I find the Topping D90SE sounds better to me than DAVE on my system, and has superior measurements as well. And so I responded to the dealer telling them they need to send the unit for independent testing to at least show the measurements are equal to the Topping DS90E before I even consider giving it a listen. (I doubt I'll hear back after pointing them to ASR as a possibility).
I realize many readers here will believe I'm deluded when I say I think the Topping D90SE is audibly different than the DAVE. No problem. But I suspect for some readers, especially ones who are considering buying the DAVE, it helps to hear the impressions of someone who has listened to and paid for both as an additional support for their suspicions based on the measurements.
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