There is one ESS filter tha I might try on the DO300- APODIZING. I don't think it allow much ultrasonic (if any) and has no pre-ring. So more natural without the pre-ring? Probably only in that area, for what I have seen the post ring amplitude is twice as high. It may be even more audible the the two small peaks of pre/post rings. No free lunch in physics, as usually.
Apodizing is pretty much similar to linear fast for ringing and delay, on the frequency response it rolls off a little earlier and has less ultrasonic attenuation
I suggest checking the 9039 documentation
here from page 20 to see all the differences in all regards
I should know more about digital filters, since I had purchased the worlds first CD player with its brick wall filter- the Sony CDP-101 in 1882. But until just recently, I thought the filter "problem" has been solved after 40+years. LOL I was aware generally of the flurry of initial activity in all the over-sampling designs to improve the DA conversion. And later, the BB ladder DACs were the one to get. I never had even heard of Delta/Sigma DACs, but since I had at one time the Super Audio Sony 1 bit CD player, I could make a guess since all these DACs supported DSD. But, silly me, I just assume in 2023 it was perfect by now. And probably my bad, but reading all the comments on DACs reviews, it seems the DAC problem was solved. Probably true for the DACs with good SINAD, but the which filter is more "subjective" it seems, if you have that choice. Gosh, say that word, but in quotes.
Also until I dug a little deeper, I had gotten the impression that all filters were pretty much similar in sound and not any possible ultrasonics affects on the post DAC audio chain. Just chose one you like- that seemed to be the simple message. With the ultrasonic issue, I would want to take that into consideration espically on the NOS filter.
Yeah, there still no perfect filter, but as you said, except for NOS that should be probably totally excluded, they are pretty much similar, since all the differences are just in theory...
in practice I don't know how much we can hear, also conisdering that ringing is not happening for every signal in the record and probably happening rarely(never) in a real world music scenario.
Pre ringing in linear is usally pretty small and not audible, ( probably only minimum fast post ringing is the one that may be audible being pretty big in amplitude)
Delay is really pretty small in linear filters, and IMD generate by slow filters may be down hearing threshold (<-100dB).
moreover it depends also on the original master (on good recordings there's no ringing) and the resolution, slow rolloff IMD may not affect at all audible range for high resolution music
Oh and I forgot one more thing, the frequancy related phase shift introduced by minimum filters
