[j 2]

Note-to-self: a sales job at Apogee is easier than Congress.

I'm dangerously close from revealing some actual truth which is obviously nowhere near your approval for anything objectively found by the tests I conduct. You don't need 10,000,000 record sales to understand sound, however you do need an incredibly clear conscience... it would be hard for me to maintain this directing sales for a corporate entitity known the world over.

In the big picture, grand scheme of things - nearly everything is subjective. Be that as it may, it's no different in the audio world, sales. A company subjectively advertises their product based on the company's subjective research and development. Certain people gain interest (subjectively) based on the feeling they get from the ad, some even purchase it. Others ask the one's who bought it - how is that thing? - and now subjectivity enters into the consumer side of the communication path, which is far worse than the 'controlled environment' side of the company's megalomania.

Word spreads, in an uncontrolled manner. One person says this (given their credentials), another person says that (given more or less credentials). This happens in every combination imaginable throughout the day, every day, all over the world and we're supposed to just revert back to who the company says is using their product ? I don't see one Apogee logo on Bob Ludwig's Mastering Technology page. I'm sure it could've taken them 3 seconds to throw one up there but it gets clearer and clearer why they haven't.

(This is the last time I'm ever comparing these two products)...however..Given the noticeable difference in sound of the Mini-Dac and DAC1, the Mini-Dac specs (from the pdf) are practically identical to those from Benchmark's DAC1 page, except actually claiming to have more dynamic range.

You're right. All of my tests are flawed. Every test done through each piece of gear calibrated with 0.00 differentiation between channels down to -105dB won't give me for all 'objective' purposes, the truth. I'm doing something wrong that is definitely revealing my inexperience and proving ingorance while allowing 2 out of a billion people to laugh at my findings.

Are we done..