ASR - Very inexpensive DACs, headphone amps, speakers, and even headphones that measure well. Because measurements alone are the bread and butter of these brands...it is the basis of their marketing material and the primary reason why people jump the gun and buy ASR-recommended gear. Let me tell you...it’s a pipe dream...
I have been disappointed my so many of the top-measuring audio electronics featured on that website..! To such an extent that I sold all of them!! From DACs, to headphone amplifiers, to USB C dongles for android smartphones that claim better performance on paper than any high-end stand-alone DAC. You would think that Hollywood studios, Sony Music Studios, and other big players in industry would using or recommending ASR gear by now...
High-end audio and the pro audio/live sound industries should have died off since the inception and frequently-posted publications on ASR - The industry as a whole has not adapted; and there are a multitude of reasons why they haven’t.
Products from those brands (You know who they are) are all "built to a cost" meaning that costs savings was all-important in terms of the quality of internal parts, design/implementation of DAC chips, the use of OP amps rather than discrete or custom types of FETs, poor quality casework that is feather-light and does not damp the internals properly, soldered-on inputs/outputs, vertical-chip capacitors that are computer-grade, rather than audio grade and therefore much cheaper to buy in bulk, the use of axial or radial capacitors rather than snap-in, the lack of ceramic saftey capacitors, no saftey resistors, and even the total absence of sacrificial fuses that blow in the event of a malfunction; to protect the inputs/outputs, reactive load (speakers, headphones), and the circuit itself. I could go on and on... lol
It is so easy to buy the latest DAC chip in bulk, slap it on a PCB, include a cheap crystal oscillator at 10 cents a piece, and have output. Therefore, the measurements are often not the total sum of parts inside the electronics, but the DAC chip at engineering standard itself. And not all DAC chips are created equal. The easier it is to implement/ it can withstand all kinds of substandard parts tolerances and teperature variations/ the worse it will sound. Rather than have all parts when, which measured, do not vary wildly and will compliment eachother to create a high-performace unit.
I understand what Amir is trying to do...he wants to be popular online. If you want the total backstory of ASR and why it exists, send me a message.