That's not true. A DAC that won't decode beyond 44.1 kHz will not sell as well as one that goes to 384 kHz, DSD, etc. None of that makes an audible improvement like room eq. Specs and measurements do sell.
You need to stop generalizing from the audiophile DAC niche. Because it self selects for people who are looking for that as the major differentiator. Even in mass market, people look at specs whether it makes a difference or not. In AVRs, one spec almost everyone looks at is amp power rating even if it does not make a difference to anything they use it for.
But you are making the same logical fallacy of assuming that because of it, any measurement we do will be relevant and important.
Consider a parody for the arguments so far:
ASR: This SUV measured near the bottom of the rankings for CoD that we measure. It is worse than that of the Ducati we have measured before that costs a tenth as much. Why can’t they make SUVs that measure as well?
ASR mob: Manufacturers are evil, greedy scum. They only care about the bottom line. They can easily build cars with better CoD specs but they will not because the consumers are easily duped and ignorant.
Me: For the target segment that buy SUVs, the return on investment is not as good in improving something that makes a tangible difference like driver-assist rather than a metric that at best goes into the rounding error of fuel efficiency ratings. They are not buying these on CoD specs.
You: Of course people buy on specs. Look at people that buy motorbikes for auto-crossing. A motorbike with a high CoD will not sell as well. And they do this even if there is no impact on their track timings. So people will buy on specs and we are going to become more and more popular and force all SUV manufacturers to have better CoD specs. See here are the google search results for reviews on a SUV which shows we are gaining in influence.
Me:
You: If you stop being negative and help promote CoD ratings, we will become relevant for creating market value and so the manufacturers will follow where even the budget cars will have as good a CoD spec as the Ducatis.
Me:
But seriously, do not take criticism for what is in my opinion, an impractical approach, as negativism. You can disagree with it, of course. In science, criticism of a methodology or an inference is not negativism, it is the norm as long as it is logical. If it is just based on activism, then it is a religion and you should change the name of the site from ASR to House of SINAD.
I have given more constructive suggestions than most for how the measurements can be improved to make it more relevant to consumers (not just tech-nerds). I have also pointed out how the ratings here can mislead and why that may make their relevance in the outside world doubtful. There is too much group-think going on here on what these measurements mean.
A better approach is not discarding the measurement but rather how you present and infer from them. For example,
1. Stop rating every device out there in a single SINAD table with arbitrary buckets that have no logical or tangible explanation as to why they are so divided.
2. For AVRs, create a separate table based on quality of audio it is capable of handling with categories of CD quality, DVD quality, Studio Quality, Hi Res, etc based on the measurement. There may be a technical explanation of what those categories mean somewhere but those labels are much more tangible and meaningful to population outside this echo chamber than bits and khz. It will also be something that the manufacturer marketing people will understand better than dB numbers as relevant to their segment.
etc.
In short, stop thinking like a technical manager and more like an outward facing product manager to make the “product” of this site more relevant and the work worthwhile to change the industry.
If that view is considered negative, so be it.