Ah, but you have no problem misrepresenting Ethan's claims.

That's not zealotry, that's physics. If there's one parameter that he forgot to mention here, it is the fallibility of human perception.

In your opinion, Weiner's 4 noble truths (within the absolute context of 'ONLY' and 'EVERYTHING') are as certain as the sun being the center of our solar system. That's a preposterous equivocation when you can have amps and dacs that measure 'audibly identical' within those parameters sound different. I can run a line of people outside the door that will tell you a Lavry and Benchmark DAC do NOT sound identical under a properly setup blind test all day long. Anyone who can't hear the difference in just treble alone between those two is either inexperienced, deaf, or biased beyond repair. Same for a Ragnarok v. O2. There's about a zillion permutations I could come up with where Weiner's absolutism would simply fall on it's face.

Must be why psycho pseudo objectivists continue to harp on tubes distortion levels that are below those of the basic transducer.
 

Speaking of the transducer, per Weiner, i should be able to take just about any transducer with the same or similar distortion measurements within the realm of audibility per your standards, EQ them identically, DSP them for the same correction and time based errors and they would sound identical. This is BS, they do NOT! I've been there, done that.

Honestly, remove audio from the equation for a sec. To me, anyone that uses terms like 'only' and 'everything' to make generalized absolutist comments is a psychotic nutjob one hair away from laying bricks for gas chambers. So yeah, zealot seems accurate to me.

Yup.  We've all just got tin ears.  That must be it

Before you get all sensitive and start with the red herrings, have you tried comparing the Benchmark mk1 versus a Lavry? Probably not huh.

I use that example specifically because it's anetode's personal DAC and it absolutely doesn't sound anything like a Benchmark DAC, yet they should per yours and Weiners and anetode's belief system.

I'm frankly sick of hearing all amps and DACs that aren't measurably faulty or broken sound the same. It's load of total horseshit. 

Before you get all sensitive and start with the red herrings, have you tried comparing the Benchmark mk1 versus a Lavry? Probably not huh.

I'm not really getting all sensitive but I'd like you to try and look at it from my perspective too.   

With all the modding I've done, and learning to hear the difference between pad materials, subtle changes in damping, and even different types of felt I'm pretty sure I'm at least a golden ear to yours and OJ's platinum.

I use that example specifically because it's anetode's personal DAC and it absolutely doesn't sound anything like a Benchmark DAC, yet they should per yours and Weiners and anetode's belief system.

No I've never heard either of those but the specifics should really matter since according to you pretty much every DAC sounds different.  Which ones shouldn't I hear a difference between?  I'm honestly asking.  I've never noticed any difference between by ODAC or Focusrite 2i2.  If I run them into another amp, my UHA-4's DAC and Clip Zip sound the same as well.

With the exceptions of ones that have kludgey tube stages added on or noisy motherboard integrateds I don't recall ever hear a difference between DACs.

The problem is when those people extrapolate "I can't hear a difference" into "there is no difference."

I'd reverse that.  The problem is that people hear a difference and extrapolate into thinking it actually exists in the equipment and not in their brain's interpretation of it.

Even if absolutely everything really did sound the same people would still report differences because that's how the human brain works and we'd still need controlled testing discover that.

I'm not really getting all sensitive but I'd like you to try and look at it from my perspective too.   

With all the modding I've done, and learning to hear the difference between pad materials, subtle changes in damping, and even different types of felt I'm pretty sure I'm at least a golden ear to yours and OJ's platinum.

No I've never heard either of those but the specifics should really matter since according to you pretty much every DAC sounds different.  Which ones shouldn't I hear a difference between?  I'm honestly asking.  I've never noticed any difference between by ODAC or Focusrite 2i2.  If I run them into another amp, my UHA-4's DAC and Clip Zip sound the same as well.

With the exceptions of ones that have kludgey tube stages added on or noisy motherboard integrateds I don't recall ever hear a difference between DACs.

I'd reverse that.  The problem is that people hear a difference and extrapolate into thinking it actually exists in the equipment and not in their brain's interpretation of it.

Even if absolutely everything really did sound the same people would still report differences because that's how the human brain works and we'd still need controlled testing discover that.

That's not a reversal. That's a separate unrelated claim.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase. Apparently you think people are hearing differences in $99 gear because they are looking at different LED colors or silver versus black chassis. Yes, I've never heard two of any amp or DAC sound identical to anything else, that's been the whole point. I've heard some sound similar or more closely related than to others, never identical. So let's do this.

Let's establish a set of listening parameters and tracks. You make notes on your method and listening notes and keep it for yourself. Send me the gear you tested (UHA4, Zip, ODAC, etc.) and I'll replicate the method and make my own notes. After we'll both compare and post here. We can even have another person we both know make their own notes. After I return the gear to you, then we can go over the posted notes and we can see who is or isn't hearing what.

Then people can even buy the same cheap gear and test for themselves to see what's what.

Have I heard differences between DACs? Not as much as with transducers.

Does a Zip/Clip sound dramatically different than my Focusrite (w/o pushing the volume to obvious distortion levels)? Not that much to me and under the conditions that I usually listen to them.

Do I think that two systems will sound the same if I remove all significant sources of distortion and noise, and if equalization can be achieved to perfectly match the two systems (sometimes this is fairly difficult and removing all sources of distortion at any level can be expensive)? Likely. But again, this may not be easy under all listening conditions and hardware configurations. In many cases it may actually be next to impossible. But in many cases one may get faily close. To the point that for some folks (including me) the differences maybe too subtle to matter.

Note two systems may behave failry similar under certain conditions, and not too similar under some others.

Note two properly set systems with similar characteristics may sound different more so cuz one day one was shit-faced vs when sober. Even if the two systems sound micro-different.