Sensitive topic for sure. As someone once said (not sure who?) “Everyone Relax. There has never been a HiFi emergency.”
That said I do know someone who had a demo Dan D’Agostino amp catch fire due to a suspected rare component incompatibility. So maybe the quote is not quite true. There is also the time my 180 pound speaker toppled over and almost crushed me.
Back on topic. I am firmly in the camp of using ears. But I do agree with Amir’s take on the value of blind tests. I do them whenever possible. Confirmation bias is real. I’ve caught myself being a victim of it, which is why I typically torture myself questioning my perceptions, and the nature of reality, sometimes going to the brink of insanity. Pushing through I have always felt I’ve arrived at a conclusion I believe to be real with every test requiring time and multiple listenings and system tweaks to reach proper conclusions. It’s a LOT of work to get there.
Amir actually helped me through his takedown of the Chord M Scaler. I decided not to proceed with this piece in my system not because of his conclusions, but because his review prompted a response from Rob Watt, Chord designer. Rob confirmed Amir’s assertion that the devices jitter was rather high, and that it was due to the component that enabled the degree of upsampling the device offers. He said it didn’t matter with Chord DACs which deal with the jitter. But said he couldn’t speak to other DACs which may not deal with jitter as well. Rob said the M Scaler is not really for use with non-Chord DACs, and I use a non-Chord DAC. Of course the best would have been for me to try one, but I was considering buying used online so that wasn’t an option. I also use an Innuos PhoenixUSB to reduce jitter, so I think the M Scaler would simply re-introduce the jitter removed by the PhoenixUSB.
I see no issue with ASR existing; we can chose whether to listen to Amir or not. And even though I disagree with his philosophy, in a roundabout way he helped me.