There always have been a problem with delta-sigma converters (my most of experience is with the first generation one-bit) that many people, including salesmen in the show rooms describe as "lack of the body" or "thin presentation". I describe it as follows: the tones with strong amplitude are presented clean on the expense of everything that happens in the background. The most affected are lower amplitude tones with frequencies that are very close to the dominant tone, but also the same for the harmonics. In that way any reverbations, interaction with wood of the instrument, overtones are filtered out, (partially) removed like an unwanted noise. The dominant tone is presented clean, but without body, like salesmen said. Our measurements do not cover such situation.
That would be EASILY measurable as distortion.
Throw away your perceptions. They're worthless. For thousands of years, philosophers have known that our perceptions lie. Just ask my glasses. Just ask my mom's tinnitus. Instead, find something measurable and concrete.
Biases are real. Yours are apparent. I came in here a few months ago, and my first post was asking if ASR was going about it all wrong. After much reading here and elsewhere, I've realized that ASR, if imperfect, is definitely going about things the right way.
I also haven't been able to figure out what gear I want to buy. It's just too damned confusing... once you factor speakers into the equation. Before that, it's pretty easy. The measurements show the truth. I know that this component has this level of distortion, power, and so on. There are still tricky bits, though, like:
1. What's actually perceivable, beyond the specs?
2. What weirdness is messing things up? Like a badly made speaker wire (been mentioned here and there), a DAC that needs a warm-up period to perform (Sabaj D5), or a DAC that runs at its best SNR when it's at full blast (all the newest Benchmark DACs), even though it has a super high quality digital volume knob.
3. What's the best value then?
4. Room EQ?
5. If I bi-amp or tri-amp, am I better off just buying a pre-made speaker where they made all the parts work together?
And so on, ad nauseum.