What do you think is the root cause of the change in measurements for the avrs with the secondary chip? The chip itself or the implementation for that chip originally planned for ?
Definitely the chip itself, and it is not what I think, it is a know fact. The chip itself has SINAD spec of 93 dB, vs the original AKM chip's 107 dB. So that's a drop of 14 dB. Amir's measurements that he said he ran it by Denon, shows a 10 dB drop in SINAd. That tells me implementation is actually very good.
By the way, implementation is of course important but imo, is often overrated, likely due to manufacturer's marketing ploy to spread such talks, used as excuse for not using better (unfortunately more expensive) chips.
It typically goes like this:
Some forum members: Why did XYZ use this chip instead of a better one?
Manufacturer: People often look at the wrong thing, the DAC chip itself is not that important, it is implementation that matter. If not implemented well, it doesn't matter which chip is used.
See the fraud in the manufacturer's argument (straw man?)..
