I am going to add another related post that touches upon a fundamental schism in the community. It is no more valid for objectivists to say we are holders of the truth than it is for subjectivists to make such a claim. This hobby and the enjoyment of audio belongs to all of us, however we want to experience it. Who are any of us to scoff at somebody's subjective experience? Do not get too enamored with measurements alone, there is a snowballs chance in hell that they alone determine how our brain creates the internal experience of music perception.
We mapped the human genome, guess what, despite all that wonderful measurement (it is measurement of sorts) we are no closer to any real comprehensive understanding of genetics. There are no gene therapies that I am aware of despite billions of dollars of research. In fact, it actually complicated the picture for science as so many new questions have arisen. We also have seen the death of the dogma of molecular biology, one gene = one protein, long held as fact. It was destroyed by the realization of epigenetics that the gene can alter what protein it produces. My point here is that nobody should sit on the altar of measurement and be absolutely sure that you sit on truth and that they can see all things clearly now. It is entirely possible that we are not measuring the right thing, or the right way , or the right combination of things. It is arrogant to feel in possession of the truth and disregard the experiences of others simply because they don't agree with you. There was a time science believed that you could predict who was going to be a criminal from facial features and bumps on our head. We laugh in retrospect, but it was a pretty widely held belief for a time.
It is entirely possible that for many, many, many people gear that measures poorly can still sound good. Audio equipment is not intended to measure well by design, it is intended to provide the listener with a pleasurable experience. Nobody says I want to design a device that measures well and focus on that, they want to use sound design principles to make it sound great to the end user. Great if it measures well at the same time, ideal in fact, but it is in reality not what consumer audio devices are for. If you go too far down that road you end up with the specifications battles where somebody is impressed that DAC a has .000065 % THD and it must be better than DAC b at .00045% THD, or arguments over jitter or balanced circuits for home audio, when in fact there is no difference at all between them in any audible sense that you could derive from those numbers alone.
Aside from when measurements clearly enter audibility in a meaningful way, many of the measurements used here and elsewhere may very well be completely inaudible and inconsequential. I actually value measurements, they are the first thing that I start research with, and I take them seriously, but I also know that they are but one aspect of how music is perceived in our hearing brain and it is easy to over-state the importance of some measures. If 500 people are played music as interpreted by the R2R11 and 500 of them say it sounds wonderful, great, it doesn't matter a lick of spit if it measures poorly, people don't measure, they listen. Do not take that as me suggesting measurements have no value, or aren't actually very important, they are, they just aren't everything and for objectivists to deride subjectivists and feel that they are somehow in the position of being the chosen "knowing people", well that is a slippery slope if I ever saw one.
Until everybody here can reliably pass a multiple trial, blind listening test, it is quite possible that some of these bad measuring designs you scoff at (without hearing in some cases I'll bet) you might actually like over a design that measures better. In fact, I would be shocked if there wasn't plenty of conflicting results which simply means that the perception of what sounds good for each of us, is a combination of things and something that measures poorly could still, counter-intuitively sound good and I am quite sure that a device that measures well could be perceived as unenjoyable for some so tell me, what is the right approach to audio? If a designer is actually able to tune a wonderful sounding design by ear, I am willing to listen (pun intended) as in the end I use my ear so listen, and if it happens to work for me, great, if not great, it works for others so who am I to mock and belittle their choices?