If you want to understand persuasion you should study Cialdini. Its been standard reading in business schools.
Maybe holding it in your hand and examining closely what is there you might realize how thin the ice is on which your opinion stands. There is no evidence to me that the results would be any different if the block was empty.
From this its clear you're really not keeping up.
You are quite right about his lack of humour though.
Humour in the audio world seems in short supply, which is funny. One of the things I find most amusing in when posters here find it necessary to announce the fact that they are about to flounce off in a huff 😀
The knack there is to get certain people to perceive the departure was made in anger while quietly smirking - to maximize the entertainment value 😛
You could ask him? Or have you two fallen out irreconcilably? Seemed to me a while ago you and he were like a just-about-to-divorce couple - you know, with the bickering....😛
I've tried asking him things, I don't bother anymore, I trust him about as much as he trusts me.
Nothing need be terminal. For the record, I am not in any business nor are there any plans to change that.
I should probably have the good sense to keep quiet about forbidden beliefs like most in similar situations do. The can/can't hear argument has been going on way too long.
Getting back to the topic of dacs, it turns out that access to good dacs is slowly becoming more democratized. IMHO, Topping D90 is clearly a better sounding dac than Bechmark DAC-3. The former sells for $699, the latter $2,200. However, ~$700 is still way too steep for a dac around here in the forum. Nobody is going to get rich competing against Topping in the dac business no matter what is said. The high volume market is lower cost than Topping can hit with D90, and the real money is in high volume.
I should probably have the good sense to keep quiet about forbidden beliefs like most in similar situations do. The can/can't hear argument has been going on way too long.
Getting back to the topic of dacs, it turns out that access to good dacs is slowly becoming more democratized. IMHO, Topping D90 is clearly a better sounding dac than Bechmark DAC-3. The former sells for $699, the latter $2,200. However, ~$700 is still way too steep for a dac around here in the forum. Nobody is going to get rich competing against Topping in the dac business no matter what is said. The high volume market is lower cost than Topping can hit with D90, and the real money is in high volume.
But you are affiliated with Jam's audio business.
"The AK4499 eval board here was down for some modding work so no direct comparison with it. However, we (Jam Somasundram and I) agreed the D90 would need some things fixed to sound as good at midrange and higher frequencies as we think the dac chip is capable of (based on our memory of how good we have heard the modded eval board sound). That said, D90 a remarkably good sounding dac for $700, and it is also the first commercial AK4499 dac we have had a chance to audition."
There is that marketing word again.
I don't think that comparing the Topping with the Benchmark and finding the cheaper unit better is promoting any sort of hi end rip-off. I find it refreshing, in fact. That is the sort of thing that I learn from, without comparing two different components myself. For the record, I don't own either unit, nor do I intend to buy either one.
Unfortunately, it takes at least one (better, two or more) pair(s) of ears that attempt to seriously evaluate a sonic difference between to audio components, after adjusting for frequency differences, polarity, and level so that the comparison can be fair. This was originally Richard Heyser's criterion, as he told to me, 50 years ago or so.