I was shopping for a dac/pre and so many of the recommended gear here have unacceptable usability issues.
Bizarre crosstalk issues, output muting by design, inability to lock toslink on normal sources like tvs and disc players, drop outs, oled burn in, trouble playing dsd or mqa, bizarre filter setting with several dB loss at 20khz, volume bugs, popping, leakage to rcas when a headset is plugged in, standby erasing volume setting, mistaken reporting of sample rate, hot operation to deliver pointless arcwelders for headphone outputs....
Some of the most touted brands seem to be expending their R&D budgets chasing a few specs well beyond what is necessary while rushing product out the door with amateur level testing beyond the AP. Much better to have fewer features and acceptable but less dazzling specs, and have it just work, and last. The often 50+ pages of bug discussions have been very revealing.