Not the measurements of the amps and dacs, but the interpretation of the results and his narrative

ASR - Good for measurements but you shouldn't read too much into his conclusions/opinions as "Everything that isn't Harman is bad!" is pretty much the default for him.

> can't hear the difference between 80 and 130 SINAD

Between 80 and 120? You most probably will. Between 90 and 120, not so much. Remember, our hearing isn't linear.

This applies to ALL measurements you see being done and not just on ASR, but always try and find at least 2-3 different sources for measurements of amps/DACs/headphones to rule out sample variation and measurement errors. Some screw-ups are very obvious (see his joke of an Ananda "review", which to this day has no mention about how the measurements were of a broken seal and are not very representative), but others such as his Mojo 2 review have extra noise past 7k since he seems to have tested it with a crap non-isolated source and thus fed all the USB noise through (which you wouldn't have realised unless you also referenced the GoldenSound review, where he actually bothers to test it with multiple sources to find out if the noise is a problem with the device or because of the source).

It's not always his fault, as sometimes manufacturers send units to him then make changes later on changing the measurements. I would argue that the "ESS hump" IMD fix makes it a better overall product (bringing distortion from -130dB down to -110dB doesn't matter, but bringing IMD at -25dbFS from -70dB to -95dB might), but as long as the site continues to use their stupid "higher is better" SINAD chart and has members/passer-by that seriously believe that, manufacturers have an incentive to "cheat" tests there since he basically never edits his main review to reflect changes and the community there always treats less distortion wayyy past the point of it mattering as some blessing from God.

> But if you were to choose between two seemingly similar products, why choose the “bad” measuring one?

Subjective sound quality (and what even are "bad" measurements?) aside, there's a lot more to consider than just measurements. I recently got a Cavalli Tube Hybrid to try tube hybrids for cheap, but the overall experience in use just doesn't match up to my old yet very similarly priced Asgard 3. The knob feels cheap and too easy to turn for something with no gain, the buttons are long-throw with a cheap actuation (therefore feeling scratchy as it rubs against the case, which is not a problem with the switches on the A3), and they used some cheap Zwee XLR connector which feels worse when inserting and is harder to pull out than the Neutrik on my Jot. I haven't felt one IRL, but the 789 seems to use the same components and at the original price of $350, would be an overall worse experience to use v. the Jot 1/2.

I'm also a bit weird for considering this, but also I prefer to put my money towards designs that are not the standard op-amp reference design with a few tweaks sold as some massive feat of engineering. The A90 and the Jot 2 both measure very well, but the A90 has the majority of its performance coming from the IC op-amps (with circuit tweaks to measure better), while the Jot is a design from the ground up which also measures very well, and is $100 cheaper. Same with the Bifrost - I can justify the money for a design that required quite a bit of R&D to figure out how to interface not-for-audio DAC chips with their own filter and still measure well (see the BF 2/64 or the Yggy MIL measurements), so to me charging the same price for what is mostly the reference design for a TOTL D/S DAC chip is a joke. Then again, I haven't seen anyone else saying the same thing, so maybe my considerations are just a bit weird.

Why not get the better measuring one?Because it might sound like shit, specifically to YOUR ears. or maybe it’ll sound better to you. who knows? the measurements certainly don’t know what you like.