I'm aware of that. My post was about putting more money to the speakers than into a better DAC. Seems that many folks here are pretty much obsessed with DACs forgetting that even the bad amongst them will produce reasonably good sound and buying a better DAC might not produce hearable results at all. Which is quite opposite with the speakers, with which, if you choose carefully, you can hear any penny invested in them.
I'm 100% with you on that, however : I do not know what happens to our ears / brain when we sit down listening A/B comparisons of different audio gears.
The background we have down in our more remote corner of our brain abt. how a particular music should sound might play a role.
IMHE, when I bought my PMC Twenty tower loudspeakers, I did the A/B comparisons to select the Blu-ray players or universal player as well as the integrated stereo amplifier.
We were in my room, with the PMC Twenty loudspeakers already well set up for my listening position.
For a session of abt. 4 hrs. we set up and crossed the combinations available with the four pieces of gears the dealer (the same for all four) brought to me.
The PMC speakers and all the powering and interconnect cabling's remained unchanged.
Universal players : Cambridge Audio 851C; Oppo 105
Integrated amplifiers : Harman Kardon HK990; Roksan Kandy K2
We played CDs and SACDs. The universal player' DACs were in charge for the conversion.
The dealer was not influencing me, he would have sell to me either pair of the devices, no external influences on me whatsoever.
The devices were in the same budget, respectively, so the price was not a factor either.
It was not my 1st experiment of A/B direct comparison.
Boy ! The differences were there and well audibles, it was not difficult for me to chose the best combination for my taste !
I am sure that many folks in here, if not all, as you as well, face the same feeling in their A/B comparisons, hence that may explain the particular and insistent attention given to one of the primary sources : our little stand-alone DAC units.