The T1 was more important than anything by Audeze or HiFiMAN?  His reasoning for the claim is worse than what I'm used to getting from my intro students. Many of the reasons he adduces are bad not only in the sense that they don't establish the truth of his claim, but also in the sense of being bad things, i.e. bad states of affairs that should be lamented with tears and sackcloth rather than enthusiasm.

Speaking of which, it's very challenging to find a review that is not positive about the T1, let alone talk of it as if it's a big mile stone of headphones.

Another site that I like is this one. I don't always agree, but his recommendations are usually at least somewhat accurate. Another slow updater though. He instantly won my respect for actually opening up the case on a Shunyata Hydra and showing what an absurdly overpriced bullshit product it is.

"I investigated the “7-element Venom filter”, and it appeared that the filter elements consisted of one Littlefuse TMOV20R130E Metal-Oxide Varistor and one noise suppression capacitor across each duplex AC receptacle. The varistor is the part that provides surge and spike protection. The capacitor across the IEC receptacle was present in one of my Hydra 4s but not in the other. It carried the following designation which I could neither cross reference nor identify the part number: IF 20T130E; IEC384-14II; 40/100/56Y2. Maker: Okaya. Okaya was contacted for part ID help, but all they could say was that it was some kind of noise suppression capacitor. Since this part was present in one of my Hydra 4s but not in the other one, I did not worry about an exact match. There were also Okaya noise suppression capacitors on each AC outlet (the black rectangular blocks in the images), which cross referenced to Vishay/Roederstein part number F17104101000. These were installed with one lead attached to the AC outlet "hot", and the other lead was connected to "neutral".

In summary, the “7-element Venom filter” was a varistor and three (or two) noise suppression capacitors. If we include the AC outlets and circuit breaker, we arrive at a parts count of 7.

http://10audio.com/reviews.htm

I take ALL reviews with grains of salt, by anyone.
At best, when I encounter a few 'positive' reviews, it may peak my interest to 'demo' them if I can.
Will never buy anthing 'expensive' based on what this or that person says.
Even when you are familiar with the reviewers 'ears' and usually concur with what they 'hear' it still isn't a guarantee you will hear it the same.

There is NO substitute for listening to something YOURSELF with music you are 'familiar' with, preferably on your OWN equipment with enough time to do so.

In short: I don't give a flying .... WHO says WHAT about WHICH product and learned to NEVER rely on any review/measurement.
This greatly reduces the 'regrets' one can have when buying something based on what any 'guru' says.

I take ALL reviews with

I agree with most of what you said, but the problem is that it is too simple of a conclusion. Full-proof against invasion, invulnerable to deceit--yes. But overly simple in the sense that not everyone lives in the Bay Area, NYC, Chicago, and so on, to hear gear first-hand. Some pirates must drive, in some cases hundreds of miles, to audition,  so that means just sitting with current sub-par gear in many cases, because that is all we know.

 For me, that is why I appreciate sites like these. I fully agree that nothing can replace direct experience of gear, preferably over a decent period of time, and that this invariably takes priority over reviews.

It is interestingly quite tricky, though, when you find long-time owners of gear post their impressions (maybe take the T1 as example), only to be disregarded or critiqued, often on the basis that said-owners haven't experienced anything else or the gear necessary to expose the putative flaws of the gear they have experienced and that they claim to love. Experience means jack-shit in this case; it is rather the lack of experience that crucified their credibility and the viability of their impressions. The lack of experience is just as meaningful as the experience; since experience of all gear is impossible, we must depend on others in some cases.

In his evaluation of Macedonian Hero, Purrin notably expressed the suspicion that it was the lack of experience that rendered his reviews less reliable and that he needs time to catch up. I know nothing about MH other than that he tends to defend Audeze at every chance he can, but the principle still stands here.

This tricky reality implies to me that individualistic, private experience of gear in my own little bubble may benefit from looking outside of that bubble, but in the absence of opportunities to audition gear, I depend on the shared impressions of others to help me out. This is again why many people are so angry about shill reviewers, myself especially included.

But in all cases, nothing (you are right) may replace extended, empirical experience 

So what? He is honest about his preferences and like Tyll so you do not have to ask "why?" but rather "what is the audio set-up?"

His efforts to create informative and balanced content are admirable.

I am guessing he is using Geek pulse or ODAC/O2 and other DAP for reviewing the headphones(he didn't list the gear in his chain).

I feel that if he had access to even higher end gear, his review would have given us even more information about the headphone's full potential that is not limited/weakened/affected by his mid level gear, if the headphone he is reviewing is a very capable one.


Take for example, in this review, Dan used his higher grade MSB Analog Dac and his Audio-gd Master9, but he also paired the headphone to mid-tier dacs like the oppo HA-1

http://headmania.org/2015/06/28/oppo-pm-2-headphones-review/

TLDR: More equipment grade allows the reviewer to access the gear's performance better.