AP, the other HYPOTHESIS I have is that this DAC from Kondo-san is much like a Rolls-Royce Phantom automobile - there are people who simply know that they want a RR Phantom car come what may & they simply go out & buy & then use it. These sort of people (so flush with discretionary income) are not the sort of people to sit down in front of a computer & write a user-review. They are simply not that breed of people.
Additionally, Audio-Note Kondo has always been a rather low profile company & I believe that reviewers approach them rather than the other way around. In this case, the reviewers might have judged (in all their infinite wisdom) that under these market conditions the price-to-performance ratio of this item is not in-line with what the market is looking for given that several much lower priced options will rival Kondo DAC's perf & possibly exceed it.
Yet another factor could be that everybody's headed to computer audio & the Kondo DAC does not support that....
Additionally, Audio-Note Kondo has always been a rather low profile company & I believe that reviewers approach them rather than the other way around. In this case, the reviewers might have judged (in all their infinite wisdom) that under these market conditions the price-to-performance ratio of this item is not in-line with what the market is looking for given that several much lower priced options will rival Kondo DAC's perf & possibly exceed it.
Yet another factor could be that everybody's headed to computer audio & the Kondo DAC does not support that....