Yeah, I agree completely. The other way I would summarize the idea is this:
The reason to push for DACs to be phenomenal is that asking for DACs to phenomenal doesn’t cost the consumer anything (the asking part) — it’s up to the companies to deliver without raising the price. They take all of the risk, not us. Sounds evil, but if we ask for -120 dB SINAD, maybe we’ll get -100 dB, etc. It also means that if you’re selling me something at the -85 dB SINAD level, it may still be plenty good, but let’s push the pricing down even further and don’t try tell me that I can getting a premium product at a premium price when it’s not.
Objective measurements means transparency. It helps correct mistakes in manufacturer's specifications like 12V being advertised for the HTP-1 or 7V being advertised in the firmware. I like my 22 dB SINAD 300B SET when I want the "sweetened" treble. When it comes to home theater, there's less of a circle-of-confusion and you rarely deal with shoestring budget movies (as opposed to shoestring budget musicians/recordings), so the pinnacle of transparency is good.
Personally, I wish more people would send in their current generation Marantz and Denon gear for Amir’s review. He is “ruthlessly” consistent and the more we challenge the industry, the better. He's like the police officer with the radar gun. Sure, most people drive over 65 mph on the highway but what Amir does is to try to test things as consistently as possible and let the reader decide on the facts. I certainly expect AVRs to measure spectacularly in 10 years given what Amir has been doing along with increased interest in objective measurements elsewhere. Yes, there's a regression with D&M on the consumer line, but there's no reason to assume that TI and Cirrus Logic won't up their game to present day AKM/ESS over the next decade.
But sometimes you don’t want to wait 10 years. Sometimes you want to upgrade right now. This gets into need vs. want. None of us really need to upgrade. For me, the Bose 901 really works well in my home theater setup where my prioritization is good sound for everyone rather than great sound at one position. I don't have gear hidden away, so the fewer boxes, the better, so my goal was to eliminate the Bose 901 Active Equalizer.
Since I run 5.2.4 for my home theater, I have several options if I wanted to correct the 901's response with Dirac. For Dirac+PEQ, the HTP-1 was my only option and there recently was a super-deal on them.
When I measure gear that Amir has already measured like this HTP-1 or something similar like the
Freya Noval, my point isn't to disagree with him or suggest that anything is wrong with his testing. It's to say, that we already know what the "ruthlessly consistent" performance looks like. It only makes sense to try to find the "best case scenario" or "how would I make the most out of what I already have?". For the HTP-1, seeing how the SINAD changes as a result of maximum output level helps every setup their HTP-1 for the best theoretical performance while still setting the "consumer request" for "for the HTP-2, can you get us more SINAD and higher voltages at a lower price". It's up to Monoprice to figure out if they can deliver our wishlist.
We don't get everything on our wishlist but again, you have to shoot for the stars to get to the Moon.
