Then it seems that the R2R is judged by different thresholds in this thread.
It is not judged by different thresholds from a technical/signal converting standpoint but of course R2R has more scrutiny from a consumer product recommendation standpoint. It is typical of manufacturers (along with reviewers and other "audiophiles") to manipulate those that are ignorant or have less experience, into buying R2R products by the virtue that it is R2R alone. It's based on the false promise that R2R changes the character of the signal passing through it which is of course nonsense, so most of those products are sold to people based on a deception.
This is ignoring the fact that R2R expensive to buy, and cannot outperform modern delta-sigma modulated dacs in general even if they can perform well. The Holo May is a great
outlier example of a well-made R2R dac that can potentially compete with current delta-sigma dacs in absolute measurements, but costs $5000 and does not outperform something at a fraction of the price. If R2R and delta-sigma dacs were competing technologies with an number of pros and cons for each, I could see a potential reason to support the good engineering of the Holo May, potentially in hopes of making said implementation cheaper or higher fidelity in time. But they are not competing technologies- discrete R2R is technologically
obsolete to the point where even a $15 dongle made for 50 cents in China can outperform 99.9% of R2R implementations available to a consumer.
So effectively you are paying for a nice metal case with respect to other products that offer similar signal fidelity in the case of Holo. It's completely fine if someone wants to use their money on that, but the important thing to us here is that we make sure they know they have full disclosure in making that decision
. Product recommendations are not simply a matter of signing off on anything that measures well or even dismissing anything that is not top measuring. Good recommendations are ones either tailored to the average customer or a specific customer based on their wants and needs and price or value is almost always a component of that. OP already has a transparent setup he spent money on, so suggesting him something that costs 10 fold for no perceivable audio quality benefit (or even a non-audible benefit) and no new or additional useful features is completely against the thesis of a good suggestion regardless of how it measures. If OP did not have any gear, we still wouldn't recommend this because of the price.
Even if Holo May was not R2R, the responses and suggestions would be identical.