[sweetspot]

Sure, I get where you're coming from. But I also think that it's safer for a person to test a DAP for themselves, and only use opinions as a slight baseline of sq, if you will. No matter how many DAPs I or someone else may have, the inescapable fact is that our ears are shaped differently, and hence the reason for differing opinions about what sounds good and not.

I would never reject testing a DAP based solely on a few opinions. Because for every negative opinion, you can bet that there is an opposite opinion. And I seriously doubt that people who claim that their Zen's sound good, is out of spite for those who claim otherwise.

Now, if every single person who tried it had the same opinion, that would be different. Doubtful you'd ever see such a scenario, unless one was rigged, though.